Nina Cassian

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nina Cassian
Romanian poet, children's book writer, translator, journalist, accomplished pianist and composer, and film critic
Romanian poet, children's book writer, translator, journalist, accomplished pianist and composer, and film critic
BornRenée Annie Cassian-Mătăsaru
(1924-11-27)27 November 1924
Galați, Kingdom of Romania
Died14 April 2014(2014-04-14) (aged 89)
New York City, United States
Occupation
  • Writer
  • poet
  • journalist
  • translator
  • film critic
NationalityRomanian, American
SpouseVladimir Colin (1943–1948)

Maurice Edwards

Nina Cassian (pen name of Renée Annie Cassian-Mătăsaru;[1] * 27 November 1924, Galați – 14 April 2014, New York City) was a Romanian poet, children's book writer, translator, journalist, accomplished pianist and composer, and film critic.[2] She spent the first sixty years of her life in Romania until she moved to the United States in 1985 for a teaching job. A few years later Cassian was granted permanent asylum and New York City became her home for the rest of her life. Much of her work was published both in Romanian and in English.

Life and Work[]

Early life[]

Nina Cassian was born into a Jewish family in Galați in 1924, the only child of Iosif Cassian-Mătăsaru, a translator, and an amateur singer.[3] In 1926 the family moved to Brașov. Cassian's fascination with languages is said to date back to that time of her childhood since this is when she started spending time with children from the German and Hungarian community.[1][3] In 1935, the family moved to Bucharest, where Cassian attended a girl's high school in the Jewish neighborhood.[3]

Over the years she took drawing lessons with and M. H. Maxy, acting lessons with and , piano and musical composition lessons with Theodor Fuchs, , Mihail Jora, and Constantin Silvestri.[1]

In 1944 she entered the Literature Department of the University of Bucharest, but abandoned her studies after one year.[1]

Life in Communist Romania[]

In the mid-40s Cassian started to find her place in the literary scene in Romania. She was married to the young poet Vladimir Colin in 1943 (their marriage lasted until 1948) and had a very close relation with Ion Barbu.[4] Most interestingly though, Cassian also formed a very close friendship with the famous poet Paul Celan during the time he lived in Bucharest (1945–1947). Along with other writers and artists, Celan and Cassian played surrealist games such as "Questions and Answers" or "Ioachim", which is the Bucharest version of André Breton's famous game, Exquisite corpse.[5] Cassian and Celan bonded over their fascination for languages and used multilingualism as an inspiration for their work.[5]

In 1945 Cassian published her first poem, Am fost un poet decadent ("I Used to Be a Decadent Poet") in the daily România Liberă,[6] and her first poetry collection, La scara 1/1 ("Scale 1:1") in 1947. These early publications were greatly influenced by French modernist poets she had spent time with, especially the surrealist writers are said to have had a lasting influence on Cassian.[3] It was labeled "decadent poetry" in a Scînteia article in 1948.[1][4] Scared by that fierce criticism, she then turned to writing in the proletkult and socialist-realistic fashion.[1][7] This phase lasted for about eight years.[4]

This is also when Cassian turned to writing children's books, such as Copper Red and the Seven Dachsies (which was published in English in 1985 after it had become a bestseller in Romania), and children's stories, such as Tigrino and Tigrene (which was written in verse and published in English in 1986, adapted from the Romanian original Povestea a doi pui de tigru, numiţi Ninigra şi Aligru).[8] In an interview in 1986, she explains why she made the choice to focus on children's literature: “It was in 1950, during the dogmatic period in Romania. Socialist realism is, unfortunately, characterized by the restraining of structures and styles and vocabulary. [...] So when I was asked to write in a rigid and simplified manner, I tried to do my best, but after awhile, I switched to literature for children because it was the only field where metaphors were still allowed, where imagination was tolerated and assonance was permitted.”[8] At least some of her children's stories and books have been translated to English but are not available in bookstores anymore today.

Cassian was later married to .[1] Although born into a Jewish family, he was Romanian Orthodox, and during their marriage, she stated that she was much closer to his religion than to Judaism, and that she had never read a page of the Talmud.[9]

Emigration and life in the USA[]

Cassian travelled to the United States as a visiting professor for creative writing at New York University in 1985.[3] During her stay in America, a friend of hers, Gheorghe Ursu, was arrested and subsequently beaten to death by the Securitate for possessing a diary. The diary contained several of Cassian's poems which satirized the Communist regime and the authorities thought to be inflammatory. Hence, she decided to remain in the US.

She was granted asylum in the United States, and continued to live in New York City.[10] Eventually, she became an American citizen.[11]

In the US, she started writing poems in English and published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines.[12] Some of these poems were also published in collections, for example Life Sentence in 1990 and Take My Word for It in 1998, both of which are still available today.

In the US, she was married to Maurice Edwards.[13]

Cassian died of a cardiac arrest or heart attack in New York on 14 April 2014. She is survived by her husband.[14][15]

Books[]

  • La scara 1/1, Bucharest, 1947
  • Sufletul nostru, Bucharest, 1949
  • An viu nouă sute şaptesprezece, Bucharest, 1949
  • Nică fără frică, Bucharest, 1950
  • Ce-a văzut Oana, Bucharest, 1952
  • Horea nu mai este singur, Bucharest, 1952
  • Tinereţe, Bucharest, 1953
  • Florile patriei, Bucharest, 1954
  • Versuri alese, Bucharest, 1955
  • Vârstele anului, Bucharest, 1957
  • Dialogul vântului cu marea, Bucharest, 1957
  • Botgros, căţel fricos, Bucharest, 1957
  • Prinţul Miorlau, Bucharest, 1957
  • Chipuri hazlii pentru copii, Bucharest, 1958
  • Aventurile lui Trompişor, Bucharest, 1959
  • Încurcă-lume, Bucharest, 1961
  • Sărbătorile zilnice, Bucharest, 1961
  • Spectacol în aer liber. O monografie a dragostei, Bucharest, 1961
  • Curcubeu, Bucharest, 1962
  • Poezii, foreword by Ovid S. Crohmălniceanu, Bucharest, 1962
  • Să ne facem daruri, Bucharest, 1963
  • Disciplina harfei, Bucharest, 1965
  • Îl cunoaşteţi pe Tică?, Bucharest, 1966
  • Sângele, Bucharest, 1966
  • Destinele paralele. La scara 1/1,1967
  • Uite-l este... Uite-l nu e, Bucharest, 1967
  • Ambitus, Bucharest, 1969
  • Întâmplări cu haz, Bucharest, 1969
  • Povestea a doi pui de tigru numiţi Ninigra şi Aligru, Bucharest, 1969
  • Cronofagie. 1944-1969, Bucharest, 1970
  • Recviem, Bucharest, 1971
  • Marea conjugare, Bucharest, 1971
  • Atât de grozavă şi adio. Confidenţe fictive, Bucharest, 1971; Second edition (Confidenţe fictive. Atât de grozavă şi adio şi alte proze), Bucharest, 1976
  • Loto-Poeme, Bucharest, 1971
  • Spectacol în aer liber. O (altă) monografie a dragostei, foreword by , Bucharest, 1974
  • Între noi, copii, Bucharest, 1974
  • O sută de poeme, Bucharest, 1975
  • Viraje-Virages, bilingual edition, translated by the author, Eugene Guillevic and Lily Denis, Bucharest, 1978
  • De îndurare, Bucharest, 1981
  • Blue Apple, translation by Eva Feiler, New York, 1981
  • Numărătoarea inversă, Bucharest, 1983
  • Jocuri de vacanţă, Bucharest, 1983
  • Roşcată ca arama şi cei şapte şoricei, Bucharest, 1985
  • Copper Red and the Seven Dachsies, 1985
  • Lady of Miracles, translation by Laura Schiff, Berkeley, 1988
  • Call Yourself Alive, translation by Brenda Walker and Andreea Deletant, London, 1988
  • Life Sentence, New York-London, 1990
  • Cheerleader for a Funeral, translation by the author and Brenda Walker, London-Boston, 1992
  • Desfacerea lumii, Bucharest, 1997
  • Take My Word for It, New York, 1997
  • Something Old, Something New: Poems and Drawings, Tuscaloosa, 2002
  • Memoria ca zestre, Cartea I (1948–1953, 1975–1979, 1987–2003), Cartea a II-a (1954–1985, 2003–2004), Cartea a III-a (1985–2005), Bucharest, 2003–2005
  • Continuum, New York, 2009

Presence in English language anthologies[]

  • Born in Utopia - An anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry - Carmen Firan and Paul Doru Mugur (editors) with Edward Foster - Talisman House Publishers - 2006 - ISBN 1-58498-050-8
  • Testament – Anthology of Modern Romanian Verse / Testament - Antologie de Poezie Română Modernă – Bilingual edition English & Romanian – Daniel Ioniță (editor and translator) with Eva Foster, Daniel Reynaud and Rochelle Bews – Minerva Publishing - 2015 (second edition) - ISBN 978-973-21-1006-5
  • Testament - Anthology of Romanian Verse - American Edition - monolingual English language edition - Daniel Ioniță (editor and principal translator) with Eva Foster, Daniel Reynaud and Rochelle Bews - Australian-Romanian Academy for Culture - 2017 - ISBN 978-0-9953502-0-5

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Ștefănescu, Alex. "La o nouă lectură: Nina Cassian" (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  2. ^ (7 March 1999). Poetry in Brief, The Independent
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Brownjohn, Alan. "Nina Cassian obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c Ciuta, Larisa (16 April 2014). "A MURIT NINA CASSIAN. Povestea scriitoarei de care s-a indragostit Ion Barbu". Evenimentul zilei. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Rotiroti, Giovanni (June 2017). "The Poem's Gift of Love And Friendship. The Letters Sent By Paul Celan To Nina Cassian". Studia Philologia (2).
  6. ^ "A murit poeta Nina Cassian. Cenușa sa va fi adusă în România" (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  7. ^ "Cassian (Katz), Nina". Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b DeLuca, Geraldine; Natov, Roni (1986). "Writing Children's Literature in Romania: An Interview with Nina Cassian". The Lion and the Unicorn. 10. doi:10.1353/uni.0.0220. S2CID 140326854. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  9. ^ Mălăncioiu, Ileana (9 November 2005). "Riscul de a privi memoria ca zestre". România literară (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  10. ^ Gray, Channing (19 June 2008). Poet, composer, refugee at URI, The Providence Journal Archived 7 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "NINA CASSIAN". Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  12. ^ "Romanian Poet, Dissident Nina Cassian Dies". ABC News. 16 April 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  13. ^ "Fabuloasele aventuri ale poetei Nina Cassian, "cea mai atrăgătoare femeie urâtă din literatura română"" (in Romanian). Adevarul. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  14. ^ "Romanian poet, dissident Nina Cassian dies". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 25 April 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  15. ^ Fox, Margalit (18 April 2014). "Nina Cassian, Exiled Romanian Poet, Dies at 89". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 April 2014.

External links[]

Retrieved from ""