Lizoanca is a groundbreaking book written in a style refined and nuanced.
Martina Freier
The novel stands out through a distinctive narrative style that explores both the present and the past of its characters, bringing together the remnants of communism with a work of high-quality fiction.
Dulce Carpio, La Jornada, Mexico City
Doina Ruști turns her novel into a fierce indictment of the corruption of the ethical values that should govern any developed society. Beyond its considerable documentary value, the novel reveals remarkable literary qualities.
Antonio J. Ubero, La Opinión, January 3, 2015
Lizoanca deals with a time span of four decades where in a small community all sorts of compromises occur, eventually leading up to disasters, and gaining their momentum as a little girl is accused of infesting the whole village with syphilis, eventually succeeding in coping with the atrocities the grown ups had been cooking up for her. I started off from a real case, which at that time enjoyed a wide media coverage, but I did not use the real facts; I fictionalized the story. What makes the core of the novel - and I believe that was precisely why the Romanian Academy awarded the novel – is the fact that people forgot their traditions, forgot the significance of a Christian monogram and that’s where everything starts from. I’m speaking about a monogram discovered by Vasile Parvan and dated 230 AD: “Sic tibi terra levis” (May the earth rest lightly on you). The real topic of the novel is the fact that people forgot their traditions.
Audio, VOXA
Berlin, 2013, Roman Embassy: Jan Cornelius, Doina Ruști, Georg Aesch, Gabriela Adameșteanu more
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.
