Doina
Ruști

Full of humor in some sequences, in other tragic and ferocious, sometimes fantastic and luminous, like a Chagall painting, which is predominant in this wonderful story [ "Zogru"] is the figure of the terrible loneliness in which lies the human spirit.

The Phantom is the narrative catalyst that makes secret forces manifest, especially those of a sexual nature, being also the most visible, single faith, dissolved in the last part of the novel (the novel The Ghost in the Mill).

Mâța Vinerii - a stylistic jubilation, a vital literature, such as Suskind's Perfume to a point, and Evgheni Vodolazkin's Laur, from another point on.

Raluca Andreescu, The Ghost of Communism Past The Birth of Post-Communist Gothic Fiction, Zittaw Press, 2011

The novel Eliza a los once años by Doina Ruști has exceptional literary qualities

Doina Ruști convierte su novela en una furiosa causa general contra la depravación de los valores éticos que han de regir cualquer sociedad desarrollada. Mas alla de su enorme valor documental, esta novela releva las extraordinarias cualidades literarias. (Antonio J. Ubero, La Opinión, 3 01, 2015)

En esta línea, sorprende la capacidad de Doina Rusti a la hora de entrelazar la historia de Eliza (indagación en su personalidad infantil: valor de los zapatos, de los cruasa- nes...) con la historia de quienes la prostituyen (no olvidar las viejas cos- tumbres y tradiciones que sobre ellos revolotean). También sorprende la capacidad a la hora de reflotar, bajo una pátina amable, la hipocresía per- sonal y social o el tema de la violen- cia, impactante esta desde la primera frase, siempre visible en la novela y en permanente función erosiva.

The great novel like Camus's The Plague.

Lizoanca is a groundbreaking book written in a style refined and nuanced.

Even the Smallest Detail of the novel is veridical ...

Maiorca, ravishing in her unique beauty, but also a little sorceress, the perfect disciple of her witch mother, Tranca, hipnotizes Leun with her Gypsy magic, while heraling him of his swollen nose, caused by bad berries, warning him of devilish side-effects. Finally, they are having a romantic night, in Bozăria, a place where impossible love and magic turn possible. After their night together, his supreme drive will be that of making her a dress so special that nobody can afford, a dress made of the finest silk, fromMalta. Maiorca is however promised to a Gypsy slave, the property of the boier Doicescu.

A wonderful story, impeccably written.

Doina Rusti is an excellent prose writer, of great talent and intuition;

As regards the literary value of the novel Lizoanca at the age of eleven, I think it is one of the most outstanding in current literature. The narrative intelligence, the fluidity of action, the invariably astonishing eloquence of the text, the shortness, the characters'pithiness, the accuracy of gestures, highly defining within a scene (approached shortly and directly, no introductions, sometimes hardly drafted auctorial reflections) and the way each short chapter enters into the whole - are hall-marks of a great novelist.

In my opinion, the confidence, the artistry of portrayal, the exact and original description of the environment, the quest for a subtle epic crescendo, the illusion of stagnation make Doina Ruști a first class prose writer in current literature.’

... I do not have much time for reading ... but it was enough to open one and I could not close it until I read it through. The other book struck me down, too. Doina Ruști is an excellent prose writer, of great talent and intuition.

The product of a powerful original prose writer, a rara avis in post communist Romanian literature, The Ghost in the Mill is not only a first-rate literary event of the current year, but also one of the most convincingly poignant works of fiction addressing the topic of local communism to be published during the last decade.

The Ghost in the Mill is an imaginative novel, in line with autobiographical fiction, in which magic realism and daily realism intertwine. [...] This mill, which is an axis mundi, the center, the hearth and the obsession of the village, where the character has no clue if he has met the angel or the devil,  this mill is the place where a murder occurs, as at the dawn of all worlds: a certain Max, an epileptic, is killed by mistake [...] and everybody is obliged to keep silent, thus becoming accomplices in the murder.  We have all been accomplices in what has defined and punished us. This is the parable of communism. A novel with substance, a sinewy prose which, I repeat, equals a part or several parts of Cărtărescu’s Orbitor”. 

Doina Ruști has the vocation of a builder constructor, the capacity to build a meaningful narrative and exuberant imagination. If asked to recommend certain characters, pages or sequences from the second part of The Ghost in the Mill, I wouldn’t know which to mention first, because almost all of them are remarkable.

The Ghost in the Mill is, from my point of view, the best novel published last year.

The characters drawn by Doina Rusti are incredibly genuine: the author has the rare gift of seeing things both in a synthetical and a contingent way, including detail within the portrait. The core of the novel is the second part: The Mill, being slightly over 200 pages and exceptional. It is this time-space condensed sequence that reveals the great qualities of the author; these are the narrative construction and the capacity to suggest the texture (substance) of a certain humanity.

The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary Cinematic Monsters (Routledge, New York)

„Romanian author Doina Ruști’s novel The Ghost in the Mill (2008) exploits the device of haunting to revisit her nation’s recent history, including the effects of the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine, in 1986”

Romanian author Doina Ruști’s novel The Ghost in the Mill (2008), writer Manuel Rivas, The Crpenten’s Pencil (1998) in wich the ghost of an artist executed by Falangist militia haunts a pencil (and its future user).

Her talent does not necessarily stand for her ability to build phrases, but characters and situations which are not only convincing, but also give you the sentiment of contingency.

The theme of communism suits very well with such a gifted writer, the demoniacal history of the terrible 45 years that Romania has undergone in the isolated space of a village.

Doina Rusti joins the elite of our still youthful prose writers with her third novel, both ambitious and masterful. (...)

The whole construction is remarkable: the epic matter, both dense and fluid, typologically diversified and symbolically rearticulated; the varying rhythm, alert or slow, of the narrative; the clever assemblage and great control. And above everything, an obvious artistic maturity.

The Ghost in the Mill is, without any doubt, one of the landmarks of Romanian contemporary prose, because of the technical clearness of the writing which simulates innocence, the morbid-exuberant imagination and, last but not least, the convincing manner in which it revisits the totalitarian period, with tender detachment, obsession for details and understanding.

The novel [Zogru] is filled with an atrocious realism, showing a vision as veridical as possible strictly of contemporary reality, but it escapes in the fantastic in a way as natural as Marquez’s famous Remedios was rising to the sky while she was hanging the laundry to dry." (Horia Garbea in Saptamana financiara Journal, March 27th, 2006).

  "The fabulous, the miraculous, the supernatural blend with the petty history, in detail, even in the day-to-day life. A substantial and gripping novel, an altogether unwonted presence on the current literary stage.

"The protagonist [The Ghost in the mill ] is indeed a scepter, hidden in a ruined mill, a topos of horror, but an obsessive attraction for people of Comosteni-village. In several hundred pages, the novel exposes the story of a family and many individual micro-narrations. The characters are transformed in kafkian style under the influence of totalitarian system, so that the final section, entitled Two days, is a delta for all wild rivers of life with the flavor of burnt rubber.”

The Ghost of Communism Past The Birth of Post-Communist Gothic Fiction, Zittaw Press, 2011

"Writing The Ghost in the Mill in order to exorcise the haunting spectre of communist times,
Doina Ruști marks an interesting break with the Romanian literary tradition. In tune with
international trends, she follows the pattern of ghost stories to reactivate a dreadful past that would not be stifled or silenced. Through the intrusion of unexplainable spectres in the life of a rural community under dictatorial rule and through the central image of a threatening and luring old mill, Ruști manages to create a Gothic novel born out of a history of fear, secrets, betrayal, guilt and broken ties. In so doing, she moves beyond the magic realism to which many writers resorted in the late communist and early post-communist period in an attempt to escape the levelling pressure of socialist realism and the censorship that came along with it. Although her use of Gothic themes and motifs represents a deviation from both old and new Romanian literary norms, which have never really accommodated the genre, the negotiation of the collective past with the tools provided by the Gothic ultimately proved successful, bringing the author high critical acclaim and international recognition. Ruști capitalizes on the genre’s interest in individual trauma and unrest, in the shattered autonomy of the individual, in the loss of coherence, wholeness and in fragmented consciousnesses, in failed relationships, oppression and suffocating anxiety. She deftly adapts the seemingly unlikely Gothic toolbox to Romanian social realities before December 1989, making the most of the genre’s tried and tested disquieting, disruptive potential"

Doina Ruști is the same prose writer of driving force, of a misleading volubility able to drag out ambiguous effects from the most low-pitched prosaism.’ (Gabriel Coșoveanu, România literară, 8 iulie, 2011)

In her novels, Doina Rusti creates scenarios and psychologies that unreel like the windows of a hypertext.’ .

Doina Ruști is a writer who always breaks out from reality restraint, in order to flow, like Aladin, on the enchanted carpet of imagination. Her prose provides all reasons to get confused, and a superficial reader stands the risk to remain prisoner or disenchanted at the sensational level of the topic. This seems to be the case with the recent novel, For men plus Aurelius (Polirom Publishing House, Iași, 2011), a story with literary fast-food ingredients: into a thriller, characters with no psychological depth, an alert simplicity of the narration.

This is a book that I would recommend to those who enjoy literary fiction that does not keep rigidly to a timeline and who could cope with the magical realism aspects of the narrative. Whilst this may not be a novel for everyone, I enjoyed it and am glad that I read it.

The translation here is extremely well-done, but it’s the story that shines with a beautiful use of language, a fascinating plot, and characters who are by turns terrible, silly, and enchanting people. Patca and Caterina are especially wonderful, although Cuviosu and Maxima piqued my curiosity as well.

Ruști creates a Bucharest that is enthralling and captivating as she blurs the lines between fantasy and historical fiction. With Patca as guide, the city’s whimsical warrens and mystical machinations provide fantastical fodder for its people. Sure, the curiously fluid timeline of The Book of Perilous Dishes can lead to misdirection and misunderstanding, but that might be the point. If nothing is ever as it seems, then you must respect every possible detail, no matter now fleeting. Cooking can be a lot like writing: it tells you about the environment you’re in through the details of a recipe or story, especially when you engage in the delicate art of stylistic fusion.

Ruști’s writing excels in her descriptions of food, surroundings, clothes, appearances, and more. It’s extremely tactile: you can sense the environment and actions, from feeling the swirls of cloth and tasting the dishes to following the action as it flows throughout the streets, markets, and homes of Bucharest. Ruști also imbues Patca with a precocious fusion of childlike wonder and world-weary mysticism. Our main character has been forced to mature a bit quickly, but she still retains an innocence about the machinations of the grownups in her world.

Although historically affiliated with the 2000 generation, Doina Ruști was trained under the canons of the eighties, which she renounced, hence the difficulty of fitting her in a literary direction, in a biological or creative generation, as she possesses a unique aesthetic formula and style, as several critics, including Dan C. Mihăilescu[2] and Cătălin Sturza[3], have noted.

Doina Ruști has created an epic architecture of great complexity, with thoughtful diegetic discontinuities, as the action builds gradually, with an obvious interest in new techniques, with postmodernist links of great finesse. In fact, she created a reputation as an atypical author from many points of view, and upon brief research of the texts that have been written about her work, we notice that the originality of style and epic resolutions take precedence.

A lot has been written about her novels, around 150 studies and chronicles, most of them overwhelmingly positive, which we must admit represents not only a performance, but also proof of a good reception of her work. Italy, Germany, Spain, England – these are but a few of the 15 countries in which she had her work translated, where her novels had a good distribution and a critical reception to match. A prestigious magazine, such as Turia, edited by the Instituto de Estudio Turolenses, dedicates a thorough analysis to her in the same issue in which another Romanian writer is praised: Mircea Cărtărescu. The exegesis refers exclusively to the novel Lizoanca at the age of eleven, translated into Spanish, and is signed by a well-known writer: Ramón Acín. Right from the start, he notes the literary value of the novel Lizoanca, the epic strength of the prose writer and the talent to create artistic tension: "with a gradual unfolding of the story, Doina Rusti prolongs the pain and horror to unsuspected limits, bringing their causes to the surface."[4] The exegete dwells further on the characters, emphasizing their value within the writing. And it's not simply about construction, it's about characterological subtleties. In the same vein, Antonio J. Ubero writes an extensive chronicle in a daily newspaper with a large circulation, such as La Opinion[5], focusing, in particular, on the "exceptional qualities" that make this novel good literature: "Doina Ruști turns the novel in a general call to action, furious against the decay of ethical values that must govern any evolved society. Beyond its enormous documentary value, this novel reveals extraordinary literary qualities."[6] Antonio J. Ubero's arguments are epic and stylistic. He comments on various scenes, and makes references to the strong message of the book. In Mexico as well, Lizoanca was favoured with an empathetic reception. "The novel distinguishes itself by a singular narrative style, bringing together the reminiscences of communism and quality fiction," writes La Jornada,[7] Mexico City's top daily.

The originality of her writing is also highlighted in reviews of other novels. Along the same lines, Leonardo Sanhueza writes in a magazine from Santiago de Chile[8] about the parabolic layer of the novel Zogru, seeing in it particular meanings, which the Romanian exegesis do not highlight: "it is about a singular book [Zogru]" which examines the history and meaning of "belonging to a territory."

In Italy, Zogru is perceived by its organic side and rather as an escape from myth. Marco Dotti writes in the daily Il Manifesto that Zogru "accesses that temporality of fantasy which, in essence, is nothing but a return of a demon to humanity, an unfortunate connection with the earth[9]", and Roberto Merlo[10] believes that the originality of the text comes from the way it combines various aesthetic categories that support the fantasy register, without falling into the trap of repetition. The novel raised many debates. In Bulgaria, Bojidar Kuncev[11] sees in it a Cioranian writing, through the type of tragedy approached in the novel, an idea that none of the Romanian exegetes noticed, but which is also found in a chronicle from the daily newspaper Il Mercurio,[12] from Santiago de Chile. In it, Pedro Gandolfo, an exacting critic from Santiago, emphasizes, in a consistent review, the tragic vein of the book, seeing in this story a parable of existentialist alienation: "what predominates in this wonderful story [Zogru] is the trace of the terrible solitudes of a human spirit without love."

In this chapter on originality, we must also include the construction of the denouement, not infrequently noting the "unexpected ending", like in this chronicle of The Little Red Man, published in Stato Quotidiano.[13]

Another aspect related to Doina Ruști's work is its visually expressive capacity. "A pictorial story (through the perfect use of simile: ("face crumpled like dirty panties", "hands like carpet beaters", "beautiful like a sleeping cat", "a summer like a jar of jelly", etc.) and a cinematic one", says Ramón Acín[14] about Lizoanca, and La Stampa reinforces this idea, talking about the expressive plasticity in The Little Red Man.[15] In the same sense, Pedro Gandolfo compares Zogru to Chagall's paintings, considering them well-defined and of valuable visual metaphoricity[16]: "Full of humour in some scenes, in others tragic and ferocious, sometimes fantastical and bright, like a Chagall painting..."

The cinematic unfolding of the plot creates the impression of an undoubted reality in Doina Ruști's novels, as the daily Magyar Nemzet[17] notes: "Even the smallest details are lifelike in the novel Lizoanca".

Literary criticism often focuses on a reliable message, with certain social implications. Zürcher Zeitung, commenting on The Ghost in the Mill, sees in this novel a kind of artistic synthesis of communist experiences[18]. But most often invoked are the social reverberations in Lizoanca. Ramon Acin states that "Doina Rusti managed to write about that dark and even invisible part of society, questioning many of its essential elements.[19]", and Zeppel believes that Lizoanca poses problems related to human rights and immigration policies in the European Union[20]. Likewise, Zsidó Ferenc[21] and Nagy-Horváth Bernadett[22] talk about the pronounced moral side of the same novel. And Gianluca Veneziani makes an interesting comparison between Camus' The Plague and Lizoanca in the daily newspaper Il Libero[23].

Perhaps somewhat more unusual are the references to the type of fantasy cultivated in some of her works, which Romanian criticism hardly ever mentions. "The Little Red Man, in its Italian version, is seen as a dystopia and compared to works by Dave Eggers, Tommaso Pincio or Gary Shteyngart.", according to Noemi Cuffia[24]. And placing the novel The Ghost in the Mill in the neo-Gothic style is a new direction. Listed in The Ashgate Encyclopaedia of Literary Cinematic Monsters[25] by Jeffry Andrew Weinstock, Doina Ruști's novel is presented in a new light, which also entails a different kind of reception. The same idea is extensively analysed and argued in a study published in English by Raluca Andreescu[26]. It includes aesthetic arguments, dealing methodically with the "faces" of the ghost, as hypostases of fear and individual complexes that dominate a village. The unusual type of fantasy is also noted by Alyse Mgdrichian, in a chronicle to The Book of Perilous Dishes.[27]

Synthesizing these exegeses, which are not few, we find that, in the view of foreign critics, Doina Ruști's writings are characterized by an obvious originality, by a type of specific truthfulness, often supported by striking and unusual expressiveness, by lexical inventiveness.

Much more numerous, the Romanian critical texts dedicated to Doina Ruști are difficult to manage. Overwhelmingly, these are positive reviews or chronicles. Many important critical voices try either to place her in the landscape of post-Twentieth-century prose, or to identify the structural or semantic marks that display the undoubted particularity of her writing. Dan C. Mihăilescu classifies her as a member of the post-Ceaușescu era[28], because her debut was a non-fictional[29] work in 1997, and her first novel appeared in 2004 (The Little Red Man), during the 2000’s generation’s rise. Although her age can be placed at the end of the 80s, by the date of her editorial debut she remains linked to the 2000s.

There is a system of reference, perhaps more emphasized in Romanian criticism than in foreign criticism, an acute need for analysis that often evokes Lovinescian synchronism. The large number of writers and works invoked in support of this analytical genre gives both the measure of the exegete's culture and that of the prose writer's receptivity towards universality. Some of Doina Ruști's exegetes venture that her fantasy prose is closer to that of Marquez[30], an association that appears in several chronicles and which is rejected by Mihaela Ursa, in favour of a reference to Rushdie: "Rather than the Marquez model, the present novel [The Ghost in the Mill] activates the model of Salman Rushdie in Shame, where an infernal, apocalyptic beast is born and feeds on the fundamental imbalance of a community[31]." Sometimes the referrals are even more distant. Commenting on Zogru, Luminița Corneanu conjectures that "One of the most persistent impressions after reading the book is something of the vitality and freshness in A Midsummer Night's Dream". Others think of Bulgakov: "The procedure of the descent of the miraculous into everyday life reminds, through its humorous effects, primarily of Bulgakov, Ovidiu Verdeș[32] believes. Constantin Dram[33] follows the same idea.

Critical notes lean towards reference fiction. Dana Sala compares Baricco's Silk and Doina Ruști's Phanariot Manuscript[34], Dan C Mihăilescu says that The Book of Perilous Dishes is "a stylistic jubilation, a vital literature, like Suskind's Perfume up to a certain point and Eugene Vodolazkin’s Laurus to another, furthermore[35]"...

In other chronicles, it is said that the prose writer "also sketches a sui-generis mythology of the city of Bucharest, thus joining the series of those fascinated by Bucharest, from Mircea Eliade to Mircea Cărtărescu[36]."

The Ghost in the Mill (2008, 2017) remains the novel which established her. Paul Cernat[37] states about this novel that it is written "by a strong and original prose writer", and it is "one of the most convincing and expressive fictions about domestic communism published in the last decade". It is a laudatory statement, which many other critics make. Paul Cernat wrote about many of Doina Ruști's works, considering that she "writes well, expressively and 'virile', with an accuracy, fluency and casualness, able to simultaneously control multiple registers – imposing herself through the force of the narrative, well tightened in the straps of a substantial composition. Recovering the "need for the Story", the prose writer associates it, justifiably, with the need to recover our historical memory. Paul Cernat is also the most careful exegete of Doina Ruști, not missing any detail. One of his observations refers to the epic mechanism through which the real event goes through the stages of its fictional becoming, or, as he explains it, in Doina Ruști's work the naked fact goes through spectacular metamorphoses, without, however, altering the informative core. The originality of the prose writer lies in the way in which she possesses the rare art of placing the message in a memorable and unusual context[38]. Few of her exegetes have noticed this inclination, and among them, Dan C. Mihăilescu says it most bluntly: "The Ghost in the Mill is a fictional novel, along the lines of an autobiography, in which magical realism and everyday realism intertwine[39]."

The originality of the epic approach, a trait meticulously praised in international exegeses, is also emphasized in numerous local chronicles, signed by Bianca Burța-Cernat, Daniel Cristea Enache, Alex Ștefănescu, Tania Radu, Cristina Balinte, Alina Purcaru and many others. Mircea Muthu, commenting on The Phanariot Manuscript, finds that the novel, among other things, brings as a novelty a kind of "historical grammar[40]". The remark refers to the lexically supported layer of national history. A more general remark, related to the same quality, is made by Tudorel Urian: "The historical novel The Phanariot Manuscript details the extent of the talent of one of the very important authors of recent years[41]. Modest, talented, always original, discreet, removed from the spotlight of worldly life, Doina Ruști naturally became a first-rate author in the library of Romanian prose writers today." In the same vein, Nicolae Breban (upon offering the Academy’s Award[42]) praises, among other things, the "exact and original description of the environment" in Lizoanca. And Adriana Bittel writes about an "original formula[43]", and from Doris Mironescu's perspective, originality comes from the profound way in which Doina Rusti not only freed herself from postmodernist clichés, but gained a unique vision[44].

The key word in relation to Doina Ruști's writings is originality, most of the time with exact reference to the subject or the character. Moreover, it is not difficult to notice that from one novel to another, she approaches themes that are as unusual as they are afterwards eagerly pursued, because what no one has noticed yet is that Doina Ruști creates trends, has the ability to leave behind epigones. As Luminița Marcu, Liviu Antonesei or Mircea Mihăieș noted at the beginning, she mixes fiction and realistic epic, in a formula that is neither magical realism, nor Bulgakovian satire. "Intelligence, including artistry, was of great use to the author in choosing the formula and, above all, in covering it in the text! A novel [The Little Red Man] that you read with the pleasure of reading a detective novel, but with actual aesthetic stakes." states Liviu Antonesei[45], and Mihăieș remarks "the pleasure of creating imaginary worlds, that is, realities that you can touch with your hand[46]."

Each novel brings compositional novelties. None of the characters in Romanian literature resemble Zogru, The Ghost in the Mill has an unusual structure, and Lizoanca starts from a real, metaphorized case.

Next, we need to emphasize her ability to construct, almost unanimously noted. Doina Ruști's novels have a solid epic foundation, a realistic subject and observations. In this sense, Bianca Burța-Cernat also lauds the author in a reference article with the suggestive title: Rehabilitation of realistic illusion[47]. The analysis is careful and well-argued: "Doina Ruști has a gift when it comes to building, the ability to create fiction with stakes and an overflowing imagination. (…) If I were asked to recommend certain characters, pages or scenes from this second part of the novel The Ghost in the Mill, I wouldn't know where to start, because almost every aspect here is remarkable. "

In the same sense, Daniel Cristea Enache[48] places Doina Ruști "in the elite of prose[49]." Cristina Balinte[50] also talks about the well-built epic." Doris Mironescu agrees with this opinion: "Her talent is about construction, characters and situations that not only convince, but give you the feeling of presence. The imagined scenes are compelling, and their cascading sequence overwhelms[51]". In contribution to this vision, Mihai Iovănel notes: "The core of the novel is, among the three parts, the second part, The Windmill: it is slightly longer than 200 pages and it’s exceptional. In this compressed space-time sequence, the great qualities of the author are best revealed: the construction and ability to suggest the texture of humanity[52]."

Some critics have attributed the clarity of construction to the many techniques of portrayal. For example, the novelist Ioan Groșan states that Doina Rusti uses "a science of portraiture[53]," and Tania Radu observes the impeccable construction of the characters: "One of Doina Rusti's critics noticed that all her characters are defined equally well, with an unusual poignancy. The hall of fame in Lizoanca at the age of eleven is no exception[54]." Moreover, this remark is found in many chronicles, and it must be said, here, that the characters gain consistency in the context, most of the time a deeply human one built on traditional foundations. Vintilă Mihăilescu best formulates the idea: "With Petrache Notaru we find ourselves in the first founding myth, even in a kind of cosmogony of sin: if the basis of any human society is the taboo of incest, this world that birthed Lizoanca was founded precisely on the overthrow of this taboo, under the confused protection of some diffuse divinities.[55]."

Profound, with reference to both sociological and mythical facts, the anthropological approach of Vintilă Mihăilescu somewhat widens the space of reception into the area of the epic construction and justifies the impression of strong realism, which Bianca Burța Cernat tackles: Lizoanca "is of a strong realism, solid, built with that self-confident pen of the "objective prose writer[56]". Technically, the construction arouses the interest of criticism. A famous philologist like Gelu Ionescu (the exegete of Eugen Ionesco's work and the unmistakable voice of Europa Liberă) delivers an applied analysis of the novel Lizoanca, insisting on the epic intelligence and composition, which in Doina Ruști's novels is impeccable[57].

After reading the enormous critical material, what is left behind is a talented writer with an indisputable body of work. I noticed that both foreign and Romanian exegeses insist on style, literary qualities, but above all, the originality of her novels. Many of the annotators of her work appreciated the complexity of her fictional worlds, with their historical settings or epic developments, in a never-ending story, but also the veracity supported by a solid construction. (fragment from the doctoral thesis)

Pompilia Chifu

[1] Study partially taken from the doctoral thesis

[2] Dan C. Mihailescu, Omul care aduce cartea, Pro TV, April 15th, 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4S8DVDEQxQ

[3] * Cătălin Sturza, Observator cultural, April 16th, 2010*

[4] TURIA. Revista Cultural no. 115, 2015, p. 234

[5] La Opinion, 03.01.2015

[6] Antonio J. Ubero, La Opinión, 03.01.2015

[7] April 5th, 2018

[8] Leonardo Sanhueza, Las Últimas Noticias, Santiago de Chile, May 7th, 2018

[9] accesses that temporality of fantasy which, in essence, is nothing but a return of a demon to humanity, an unfortunate connection with the earth" (t.n.), in Il Manifesto, May 15th, 2011. The text can also be found here: https://www.micciacorta.it/2011/05/i-demoni-della-romania/

[10] Quaderni di studi.., no. 5, 2010, Edizioni dell’Orso, Torino, p. 134

[11] About fate in Zogru, Literaturni Balkani, Sofia, 1/2009

[12] August 19th, 2018

[13] “A substantial novel with a dash of mystery that, by the end, perfectly achieves its goal of leaving the reader enthralled.” Roberta Paraggio, in Stato Quotidiano July 3-5th, 2012. It can also be found here:

https://www.statoquotidiano.it/29/09/2012/macondo-la-citta-dei-libri-89/101608/

[14] ibidem, p. 325

[15] “The explosion of original, poignant expressions is entirely overwhelming.” (t.n), Alessandra Iadicicco, La Stampa, nr. 1815, May 12th, 2012

[16] ibidem

[17] December 31st, 2015

[18] “Doina Ruști's book showcases a wide range of literary skills, which give the measure of posterity in the Romanian history of the 20th century” (t.n.), Markus Bauer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zürch, 4.01.2018

[19] ibidem, “Doina Ruști managed to write about that dark and even invisible part of society, questioning many of its essential elements.” (t.n)

[20] Deutsch-Rumänische Hefte*, Jahrgang XVII · Heft 1 · Sommer 2014

[21] in Székelyföld 4/2016

[22] Ambroozia 2/2016

[23] May 18th, 2013

[24] Tazzina di caffè, May, 2016: “On the border between health and illness, between real and fantastic, between mysticism and the everyday, this book explores, in a fresh style, a dystopian vision, reminding me of The Circle by Dave Eggers, Panorama by Tommaso Pincio and Super Sad True Love Story by Shteyngart.”

[25] Routedge, New York, 2016

[26] vol . Studies in Gothic Fiction, Zittaw Press, 2011

[27] Shelf Media Group, April, 2022, Los Angeles

[28] vol I-III, Polirom Publishing House, 2005-2007

[29] Dictionary of symbols from Eliade's work

[30] Horia Gârbea, Ziua literară, January 22nd, 2005

[31] Apostrof, no. 11, 2008

[32] Cuvântul, June 2006

[33] Convorbiri literare, February (110), 2005

[34] Weaving a Narrative from Metamorphoses in Alessandro Baricco`s Seta and Doina Ruști's Phanariot Manuscript – ALLRO, Volume 22, 2015

[35] https://www.facebook.com/LibrariaHumanitasDeLaCismigiu/videos/1452430624777965/?pnref=story

[36] Gabriela Gheorghișor, Dilemateca, May, 2010

[37] Paul Cernat, Comunismul românesc în moara realismului magic, in „Revista 22”, Bucureștiul cultural, no. 2, of December 2008, https://revista22.ro/bucurestiul-cultural/bucurestiul-cultural-nr-152008-i

[38] ibidem

[39] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKyeX9uWL6o&feature=youtu.be

[40] Apostrof no. 4 (311), April, 2016

[41] Viața Românească no. November 11th, 2015

[42] See the holograph text in the Annex

[43] Formula AS, no. 854, 21.02/2009

[44] Suplimentul de cultură, May 9-15th, 2009

[45] Liviu Antonesei – Timpul, March, 2005

[46] Cotidianul, August 13-14th, 2005, p. 17

[47] Observator cultural, no. 459, of 29. 01.2009

[48] Daniel Cristea Enache in Timpuri noi, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 2009

[49] Timpuri noi, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 2009, p. 177

[50] Cultura, April 6th, 2006

[51] Suplimentul de cultură, May 9-15th, 2009

[52] Cultura, 29.01.2009, no. 4

[53] Observator cultural no. 792, October 2nd, 2015

[54] Revista 22, April 7th, 2009

[55] Dilema Veche, April 16th, 2009

[56] Revista 22, Bucureștiul cultural, Oct 6th, 2009

[57] Apostrof, no. 10/2009