This week’s Romanian Icon is Nichita Stanescu (March 31, 1933 – December 13, 1983), who is one of the most acclaimed figures of the Romanian literature in the 20th century, and maybe the greatest poet of his age. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize and won the Herder Prize. A heavy drinker (he was allegedly drinking up to two bottles of vodka every day) he died at 50 due to liver failure but his work remained a source of inspiration for both the literary scholars as well as his bohemian readers.
“Everything is simple, so simple that it becomes incomprehensible.”
“Tell me, if I caught you one day
And kissed the sole of your foot,
Wouldn’t you limp a little then,
Afraid of crushing my kiss?…”
“My sadness can hear the unborn dogs barking at the unborn men.”
