‘The Untold Love Stories’ By Tatiana Niculescu: Love Destined To Be Inherited

I was walking leisurely through the bookstore, feeding myself on the smell of printed letters when, suddenly, a book on the bookshelf dedicated to contemporary Romanian writers plucked my sleeve. I took it home, I started reading right away and I finished it the same day. For a long time I had set out to discover Tatiana Niculescu and I am glad that I finally managed to do it, through “The Untold Love Stories”.

About the author

Tatiana Niculescu is, according to of Humanitas Publishing House presentation, the one who introduced the genre of biography in contemporary Romanian literature. From the Goodreads platform, we find out that the author studied at the University of Bucharest, later graduating from the Robert Schuman European Institute of Journalism in Brussels. For 10 years, starting 1994, she was editor and presenter of the Romanian section of BBC World Service in London and in the period 2004-2008 she headed the BBC World Service office in Bucharest. Her literary debut took place in 2006, with the novel “Confession at Tanacu”. Among her works, I mention “The Seductive Mr. Nae: The Life Of Nae Ionescu”, “The King And The Madam: Carol II And Elena Lupescu Beyond Gossip And Clichés” – both Humanitas bestsellers, “Mihai I, The Last King Of The Romanians, “Queen Maria : Last wish”.

 About the book

“The Untold Love Stories” storied by Tatiana Niculescu are inspired by real events, documented from memoirs or biographies. Sometimes, the author was told the story, directly, by a character or a character’s relative. Anyway, all the protagonists are real people. The volume contains seven love stories viewed “from a different perspective than the one usually accepted” and which urges you to a pleasantly dream of past centuries.

One by one, the chaste, adolescent love, the incestuous love, the passionate love (with crazy accents), the predestined love, the scandalous love, the deep love entered the scene.

And the scene moved from the Romanian vineyards (whose wine has a history related to the history of Romania itself) to Paris, from the Dordogne river valley to Caracal, from Côte d’Azur to Bessarabia, from Bucharest to Lombardy, from Sulina to Transylvania and from Constantinople to Cairo. I always had the feeling that I was listening to a fairy tale said in a low voice, that I had the privilege of glancing behind the curtain of time and distance, to capture, in fact, feelings, emotions of the past, love as it was felt.

“Maybe it’s time to meet my own dead”, says a Frenchwoman whose DNA urges her to unearth the story of the love lived by her ancestors. Because some loves are destined to be inherited. Others are violent and may be found in icons. In Bessarabia, love has a sublime eroticism intertwined with the craft of kneading cakes and the passion transforms into the revenge that follows the adultery. Love and adultery do not avoid royal houses either, and what could be more outrageous than a twentieth-century royal divorce?

And if all these crazy love stories did not convince you, then, the fact that one of the lovers is the great Neagu Djuvara at the age of first love, will surely convince you. And I don’t know who is “to blame” – the presence of the teenager who became a famous man of culture and ambassador of Romania or the candor of adolescent emotions – but this story gave me butterflies in my stomach.

When you’re in a mood for a good story, I recommend “The Untold Love Stories” along with a wine from Stefanesti Vineyard. The book is Lust For Flying.

To the author:

Tatiana, I look forward to meeting “The Seductive Mr. Nae”, seen from the same unique perspective!

Quotes  (translation from the Romanian edition)

  • “The best taste in the food of life is, indubitably, the humor.”
  • “I am always amazed at the power of the human mind to retain all sorts of details, while situations and events that seal our fate are completely passed into oblivion.”

The book “The Untold Love Stories”  is only in Romania for now, no English translation yet.

Read more book reviews by Raluca Neagu here.

bookliteratureloveTatiana NiculescuThe Untold Love Stories
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