Out of The Transylvania Night

Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania…

Nobody can truly forget the country, either good or bad, which happened to give him roots. I left my Alma mater in 1997, but that didn’t mean that I forgot my origin. I left my parents in tears when the plane took off, but I didn’t stop loving them. Every ending has a new beginning. After 13 years, I am going back to my cradle, the mysterious land of Dracula through my memoir, Out of the Transylvania Night.


The same eerie land, filled with myths, legends, and folktales became the starting point of my book, the spring of my relived life, the incipient phase of my down-the-memory journey. Why do we have to acknowledge that the most beautiful things are born out of the most horrendous pains? It is so true and so sad, at the same time. My book grew out of an immense ache, carved in my soul by the news of cancer, the invincible disease that was now hunting my beloved Mother. My mind, tortured and estranged from my body, started knitting the memories of my childhood, of a worry free adolescence, when living under the cruel regime of Nicolae Ceausescu was a daunting everyday experience. The bleakness of the streets contrasted vividly with the calm, warm, sincere, and welcoming embrace of my parents. The same hide-and–seek places, the same Cibin river where I used to ice-skate, the one and only Hospital Number 3, harboring the mental diseased ones, my tall and imposing chestnuts where I used to loose the track of hours, all of them were invading my mind. The race against time started, for I needed to prove to my Mom in the remaining months of her life that my muse was still fresh, that my pen was still sharp and pointed. I had to write, find a publisher, and leave her with something she can hold onto. Something perennial!

Nights were long, and the dawn was creeping in earlier that I had ever wished. One day passing was by, and ten more pages were written. One by one, one on top of the other until my life, my memoir of 384 pages has been finished. It is about my Mother, my Dad, my Buni (my Grandma), my Grandpa, my ancestors and my lineage. It is about a powerful family, who was kneed by the Communist regime, stripped by its properties and haunted for his willingness to stand up and talk against the regime.

Many of us saw life in Romania in pink shades; others in dark ones. Some flourished, few survived. This memoir is testimony of a life that was lived in Transylvania, in an amazing family who has given me the power to be myself up and follow my dreams.

My Mom, the soul of my existence passed away on Jan 1, 2009, and, on the same day, the book was born.

So, a beautiful rose grew out of a bush of thorns….the thorns of despair…the thorns of survival!

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