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This article deals with the representation of motherdaughter relationships in novels by Herta Müller, Aglaja Veteranyi, Carmen Francesca Banciu and Gabriela Adamesteanu, all of them born in Romania. Herta Müller and Aglaja Veterani constantly wrote in German, while Carmen Francesca Banciu changed her language after emigrating to Germany and Gabriela Adameºteanu’s language has always been Romanian. Mother-daughter relationships are analysed in regard of female genealogy, but also considering their complexity and ambiguity. It is shown that representations of mother-daughter-relationships are depending rather on individual and psychological criteria than the author’s cultural or ethnic affiliation. Maybe a larger study, which could not be made in this article, could reveal more detailed results.
Two Romanian authors, Nora Iuga and Carmen Francesca Banciu have published their impressions about the German capital Berlin. Nora Iuga stayed there twice for a limited period of time (in 2000 and in 2010), whereas Carmen Francesca Banciu decided to live in Berlin after her scholarship there ended in 1991. This is why Carmen Francesca Banciu’s writing changed together with the changing city, which was then under construction not only literally but also in a figurative way integrating new influences due to the opening of Eastern Europe after the end of its isolation during the Cold War. She is one of those new elements which reshape Berlin adding new and different perspectives to its cultural life. Banciu publishes her impressions in Berlin ist mein Paris. Nora Iuga, on the other hand, remains nothing but a visitor. Her ideas about the City and about the Germans in general change a lot during her stays in Berlin. In the end, she leaves for Bucharest with new impressions, which are released in Romania in her book Berlinul meu e un monolog.
This essay deals with the intertextuality of the 21st century novel Zaira by the Swiss-Romanian writer Cătălin Dorian Florescu and the 21th century tragedy Zaire by Voltaire. It is analysed whether the name of the female protagonist Zaira is used by Florescu by accident or whether he refers to Voltaire. Furthermore, the differences between East and West brought up in the novel and the tragedy are examined. There are some similarities to be found as to the topoi of the selling respectively buying of women or fate deciding about the life of the protagonists. However, in the author’s opinion they don`t justify the assumption that Florescu knows the text by Voltaire or even uses it in his own novel.