Svetlana Cârstean: The gravity of poetry
– Romania
Born in 1969, Svetlana Cârstean is a poet and a journalist. When she was thirty-nine years old, she published her first collection titled Floarea de menghină (The Vise Flower) to an universal acclaim: raving reviews, multiple awards and a number of translations followed. The book brings back memories of the oppressive world of communist-era schools from which a “vise flower” sprouts as a parable of a human being bound by the system. Seven years later she published Gravitație (Gravity), a poetic book about weightlessness, the loss of loved ones and pain as one’s most intimate friend. The next collection titled Trado was co-authored with the Swedish poet Athena Farrokhzad. In the book, poetry engages in a dialogue with an essay on love, betrayal and translation. Despite the extraordinary success of her books, she says: “You can’t make a living out of poetry... But you can’t live without it either.”