The rebellious prodigy of Romanian-American letters, poet, translator and editor Andreea Iulia Scridon, comes to RCI New York on May 19 for the launch of her acclaimed book A Romanian Poem (MadHat Press), the melancholic, witty, romantic, and surreal collection of poetry complementing a flurry of new original work and translations she has completed during the pandemic. The English-educated Floridian, now based in the Romanian city of Cluj, in Transylvania, is accompanied by indefatigable author, translator and promoter of Romanian poetry in the English-speaking world, New York-based Paul Doru Mugur, the editor and co-editor of several massive anthologies of Romanian verse in English, with whom Andreea collaborated at his later effort, the anthology Natural Born Digitals, in preparation at Talisman Press.
Book launch and literary conversation:
Special Guest: PAUL DORU MUGUR
Andreea Iulia Scridon (b. 1997) is a Romanian-American poet. She studied Comparative Literature at King’s College London and Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Across the Nile-Green Sky (Greying Ghost Press, 2022), Calendars (Broken Sleep Books, 2022), and Unicornucopia (Ethel Press, 2022). Her poetry collection in Romanian, Hotare (Borders), won second place in a national manuscript contest in 2021. She is the winner of the University of Oxford’s 2020 STAAR Editorial Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 Oxford Review of Books Short Fiction Prize. A translator of Romanian literature into English, Andreea Iulia Scridon has translated two books of poetry, one of short stories, and is the editor of an anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A ROMANIAN POEM:
“This young Oxford graduate reminds me overwhelmingly of an early Auden, and I think she has every chance of becoming the Auden of her time. Her intensity, her industriousness, her scientific passion, her lively and elemental belief in love, conspire to round out the Man of Letters.” - Ben Mazer
“In A Romanian Poem Andreea Iulia Scridon has created a haunting and atmospheric cascade of scene and reflection. This is an impressive debut collection, shot through with sharp observation transformed by feeling and vivid association, a series of contemporary praise-songs and meditations on place and time, and on the relationship of journey and pilgrimage to hope and faith.” – Jane Draycott
"Andreea Iulia Scridon’s poetry attains emotional and verbal precision by letting the world play its music upon the subject’s well-tuned nervous system. Life – that bright amalgam of sense experience and soul experience – is preserved in the questioning, exploratory lines that it leaves on pages. Unmistakably, this poet has thrown in her lot with the noble poetic ambition that drives her poignant, softly spoken, subtly distinguished reflections." – Philip Nikolayev
Paul Doru Mugur (b. 1969) was educated in Romania, France and the United States, holds a doctorate in Medicine, is Associate Professor at Weill Cornell College of Medicine, and a specialist in hematology and medical oncology at Presbyterian Hospital in New York. He is also an accomplished author of poetry, prose, and scientific works. He was the founder and editor of the cultural magazine Respiro. His publications include: The Shield of Perseus (Publistar, 1999), Something Easy (Brumar, 2006), Born in Utopia: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry (with Carmen Firan and Edward Foster, Talisman House, 2006), Locul nimănui, Antologie de poezie americană contemporană (Nobody’s Place. Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, in Romanian, Cartea Românească, 2006), Psychonautics (Curtea Veche, 2009, the English version in preparation at the Meridian Press), The Vanishing Point That Whistles: An Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry (with Adam Sorkin and Claudia Serea, Talisman House, 2011), Poeme din Zona de Tranzit, Antologie de Poezie Hispanică (Poems from the Tranzit Zone. Anthology of Hispanic Poetry, in Romanian, Tracus Arte, 2020).
PRAISES FOR THE ANTHOLOGY THE VANISHING POINT THAT WHISTLES:
“This Romanian poetry arrives in the 21st century like a much-needed remedy for the excessive stylistic inventions that seem to accompany what is soon becoming an almost universal postmodern aesthetic. It's a book that I'd want my graduate students of poetry and literary translation to read.” – Roger Sedarat
“Anyone able to hear the sound this poetry makes will be rewarded with a sharpening of their own tools of perception.” – Andrei Codrescu
“Vanishing Point That Whistles… is a source of pure reading pleasure from one of the world's most poetic places. If you haven't yet gotten acquainted with the brilliance of contemporary Romanian poetry, enter here.” – Sharon Mesmer