Paper Children

Mariana Marin’s politically charged poems are here translated by Adam Sorkin, a well-known specialist in twentieth-century Romanian literature. Marin was the poet maudit of her generation and a prominent member of Bucharest literary society. Her poems, rich with metaphoric language and symbolism, are pained cries for justice in an unjust society. Marin is an excellent introduction to contemporary Romanian poetry; Paper Children is a seminal example of oppositional poetry during the final years of totalitarian communism in Eastern Europe.