Did you know that Romanian is the 5th most widely spoken Romance language in the world, after Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian? Also, there are strong historic links between Romania and France, dating back to the 18th century, and in 1991 Romania joined the International Organization of La Francophonie.
In March we are thrilled to celebrate the month of Francophonie and the French-speaking world with Romanian Congolese writer Annie Lulu, and her special guest, Romanian American writer and scholar Domnica Rădulescu.
Join us on March 5th at 10am PT| 1pm ET.
Register here.
You can buy the novel here.
Event organized in partnership with Alliance Française de Seattle. Find out more about how the Alliance Française of Seattle celebrates the Month of Francophonie throughout March.
Guests
Credits: Francesco Gattoni
Annie Lulu
Annie Lulu was born in Iasi, Romania. Her father is Congolese and her mother Romanian. She arrived in France at a young age, then studied philosophy. She devotes herself fully to writing. "La mer Noire dans les Grands Lacs" (The Black Sea in the African Great Lakes), her first novel, received the Senghor Prize, the Littérature de l'Exil Prize, and was a finalist for many prestigious literary prizes in the Francophone world (Prix Orange du Livre, Grand Prix du Roman Métis, Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, Prix des Étonnants Voyageurs.
Domnica Rădulescu
Domnica Radulescu is an American writer of Romanian origin, living in the United States where she arrived in 1983 as a political refugee, having escaped the communist dictatorship of her native Romania. She settled in Chicago where she obtained a master’s degree in Comparative literature and a PhD in Romance Languages from the University of Chicago. She is the Edwin A. Morris Professor of Comparative Literature at Washington and Lee University.
Radulescu is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, Train to Trieste (Knopf 2008 &2009), Black Sea Twilight (Transworld 2011 & 2012) and Country of Red Azaleas (Hachette 2016) and of award-winning plays. Train to Trieste has been published in thirteen languages and is the winner of the 2009 Library of Virginia Fiction Award.
Radulescu received the 2011 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and is twice a Fulbright scholar.
Radulescu also published fourteen non-fiction books, edited and co-edited collections on topics ranging from the tragic heroine in western literature to feminist comedy, to studies of exile literature to theater of war and exile, refugee art, and two collections of original plays. Two of her plays, Exile Is My Home and The Town with Very Nice People were runners up for the Jane Chambers Playwriting award in 2012 and 2013. Dream in a Suitcase. The Story of an immigrant Life is her first memoir and it has been released from Austin Macauley Publishers in December 2021.