We’re in Samizdat Podcast with Diana Mihuță, a bookseller from Cărturești Chișinău — her place of energy, where she is organizing several literary events within the library and, pretty soon, some external events as well.
She’s also a passionate reader of fantasy and fan-fiction books, in addition to the “serious” daily reading.
How did Cărturești arrive to Chișinău?
Apparently a lot of work was done,and if I’m not mistaken, there were some talks in regards to opening a Cărturești in our country, then a local investor was found. Therefore the Cărturești “scouts” from across the Prut arrived and did all the necessary work, and the investor was on the one hand willing to bring Cărturești to Moldova, on the other hand inspired by the idea of reunion with Romania, at least in small deeds. I don’t think I would know more behind the scenes… that’s about it.
We know that you are used to recommending various readings to visitors, what genres are more popular among readers?
My recommendations reach very few people, that is because the most popular books go without recommendations. There is a list of books that I don’t think need any mentioning, from the category of personal development, so-called financial education, psychology and to super-popular novels that are almost viral, even if we have different opinions about how good a book is. And the recommendations are reached by people who have either read these books or who do not necessarily feel very safe to explore on their own, or who simply want to have a discussion. They will not necessarily buy the books we will recommend, but they might go home with a pleasant feeling that they have discussed the books with a person who knows the deal.
How does the recommendation happen?
As a general rule, it happens like this:
— Please recommend a book to me, I want to give it as a gift.
And we start, almost like doctors… almost: But what kind of books does this person like? Okay, you don’t know, you don’t know the person that well, but tell us what is this person doing, what do they like? Or how well do you know them, what field are they from?; all kinds of questions that help us build a portrait. Well then, the next step is: Do you want an instagram book, for it to be beautiful? Or do you want an informative book?
We don’t start by saying that these are the 1, 2, 3, 4, best books, no. We seek to adjust to the needs of the customer.
From your observations, which languages are preferred?
It’s very different. Different people buy different books. I didn’t come through with a statistic, I can only say that many young people aged 14 to 25, prefer to buy books in English, if they have the option to choose. If not, they choose what is already on the bookshelf or decide to wait for the book to appear in the language they need.
How about the local literature, is it of any interest?
There are several authors, very popular, Nicolae Dabija’s “Homework” (Tema pentru acasă) is super popular, Vitalie Cipileaga’s books that have their audience, Ion Druță, and already the contemporary authors who have their own audience, so Lilia Calancea, Alexandru Bordian, Igor Guzun as a poet, and you know, usually the seekers of poetry are special folks. They need neither recommendations, nor too much involvement from us. They just ask us to show the poetry shelf, and they prefer to explore by themselves.
But in regards to women in literature, do you somehow feel an interest in the feminist poetry/literature?
Very, very little interest. And so it happens that when I recommend a book as a theme, a feminist subject, an activist author, there is a lot of reluctance. They go like this: Ah no, another time, or Ah no, I prefer to choose something else, and it’s quite sad.
What contemporary female Moldovan writers can we find in Cărturești?
There’s Lilia Calancea who published her book this year “Am I an executioner?”(Sunt oare un călău?). It’s a book about the Treblinka camp, a fascist camp for the extermination of Jews, it’s a book with a special emotional impact.
There is also Claudia Partole, who has some new books, and is popular among young people. The volumes of poetry are only one or two copies each, and they are discovered more during the reading events, I would say, rather than from the bookstore.
When a book launch is organized, in addition to talking about the author and their book, the author also reads some of their poems. The reading workshops are the evenings when, without announcing any launch, the authors come to the bookstore and read their poems. Which I think is a very nice event, to introduce the public to the local poetry. And unfortunately this kind of event is somehow less popular in our country. The last one we hosted was “An evening of poetry with Ioana Isac and Gheorghe Postoroncă”, so it was Ioana’s poetry on Gheorghe’s melodies. It was so enjoyable and so emotional that we are very eager to organize something like this again, even if the reading workshops don’t really gather a large public.
How do the books of Romanian publishing houses come to Moldova?
First of all, Cărturești has a plan, and we are part of it being a Cărturești bookstore. Then again, the interest towards the books of Romanian authors is selective. There are some writers known to the Moldovan public, like Mircea Cărtărescu, like Vasile Ernu, like Nichita Stănescu and I would stop here, I think. Because for the other authors we want to make known to the public, it is necessary to put their books on a highly visible spot and highlight them insistently. Another way to pay the readers’ attention to the Romanian literature would be to take the readers to the shelf of Romanian authors, and tell them, look, Ioana Pârvulescu is a very good author, and we recommend at the moment the novel “Innocents”(Inocenții), which is a soothing reading I would say, and suitable for the tastes of many people.
I usually like to recommend Romanian authors and I also try to read more of them, to recommend what I already know. For example, when someone comes and looks for an adventure book or a historical adventure novel, I quickly take them to “The Exodus of the Lambs” (Exodul Mieilor) — a book by Irina Georgescu Groza, about a group of young people who fled the country and their road from the occupied Transylvania by The Austro-Hungarian Empire. For all of us here, on the left bank of the Prut, it is a very tasty read because it is written in a local Transylvanian dialect. This book is a delight and not only because of the language, but also the subject, the dialogues as they are constructed, it is one of those readings that I can put next to Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers”, but because our people know very little about what the Romanian authors write, they are reluctant. And these books are like chests, like key boxes, that you need to open in order to find out more.
There are also the novels of contemporary authors that appear and about which I know or have been waiting for their books, the last of them is “Sit down or fall” (Stai jos sau cazi) by Bogdan Munteanu. A book, a nice novel that I was surprised to learn that not everyone enjoyed. Okay, it’s perfectly normal to not be liked by everyone, it’s a story about the life of an adult man with epilepsy and his stories. It’s a positive novel more than a depressing one. I always recommend it as a story of hope, but also as a guide to learning about epilepsy, to know that it is not “falling sickness” or the black disease or something like that.
And I like it too.
There are some well-known authors, such as Dan Lungu and “I’m a communist old woman!” (Sînt o babă comunistă!) his bestseller book, about which Romanians have probably already forgotten, but we are still in the process of getting to know it, or his other books.
There’s Petronela Rotar who puts more emphasis on interpersonal relationships, couple relationships, the relationship with the mother, which I again recommend along with stories, psychological memorialism. Every time it’s different, every time it’s another area.
What are the library’s plans?
Cărturești is first and foremost a network of bookstores where the emphasis is on popularizing contemporary local (n.e. — Romanian) reading and poetry, contemporary authors. Multiple events are being organized, meetings with writers and poets, poetic events, festivals, including short prose like “Short” festival, which is organized usually in the fall. As far as I know, thematic shelves are organized in each of our bookstores, where there are also Bessarabian authors. A list of books is made and each bookstore makes its own shelf according to the stocks it has, meaning it is a fairly comprehensive plan.
Shall we expect some collaborations with Romanian festivals?
Let’s say the Street Delivery festival is an independent event, but it was initially organized by people from Cărturești (Cărturești Foundation). We want to organize a Street Delivery here in Chișinău, and we have wanted this for several years, since the bookstore appeared. We hope that next year, probably, when we won’t have a war behind us, we will create a team that wants this, because you can’t do anything on your own. And Street Delivery will also appear on the streets of Chișinău.
After the pandemic, Romanian festivals are organized more online, meaning that anyone from any country, including us, has access to these festivals. But to bring it here on the spot, you need a team, a foundation, and the bookstore, no matter how big it is, is not a sponsor for these festivals, you always need a team to raise funds, to organize things, besides the bookstore, that’s it. We can have any festival here if we want it and if we organize it. Cărturești will always support the efforts, will promote through all its means of communication these festivals or any cultural event.
To recap a bit, and yet, do people read in our country?
I can only judge by the people who visit the bookstore, who are not all the people in the country, of course. They read, most people read bestsellers, but they do not rush to discover authors they have not heard about on social networks or from their friends. Most of us read fairy tales: these are the children, and the parents, and even if they don’t have time and they don’t read, they still encourage their children to do that, and this makes me happy.
Coming back to the idea of activism and feminist interests, what do you think about feminitives and the Romanian feminist literature?
I would say it is still less literature than it could be. Feminitives have a place to exist, because when I hear “jurnalistul”* (the journalist) I think of a man, when I hear “doctorul” (the doctor) I think of a man too. Whenever I hear the “ul” ending, I will always think of a man, and only after finding out the name of the person, but if I am someone from a country where I don’t know which are feminine names, which are masculine, I really won’t know. I’m for feminitives, I try to use them and I’m okay if I get corrected for not using them, because we have a habit of missing them.
*Romanian nouns can have three genders: feminine, masculine and neutral. When talking about jobs and professions, it’s common to use the masculine noun for both men and women. Previously, professions existed only in the masculine gender simply because they were represented by men mainly. Since then, however, much has changed.
But the feminist literature is at a fairly early stage, I feel like that, I see a lot of inconvenience, and a sort of reluctance coming from women to read feminist literature, which is not necessarily composed of slogans, and the feminist optics is yet to be discovered / used by women. If you read any book from a feminist perspective, it appears different to you.
There is a great retincence to declare yourself a feminist because not all of us yet understand that it is not necessary to be an activist to be a feminist. And this feminist perspective largely helps us to know and demand our rights, to be confident in our strengths, to ask for a fair salary, not to let our hands down and not to be silent when there’s injustice. We are still too silent because it is easier like this, because there is a lot of resistance when you are in a situation where you have to ask for your rights. And everyone around, women and men do not understand what you want, or consider that you are splitting hairs, and it’s too long a discussion in this area that we have not completed, but we are still going to deploy.
