Nina Cassian

Nina Cassian (pen name of Renée Annie Cassian-Mătăsaru;[1] 27 November 1924 – 14 April 2014) was a Romanian poet, translator, journalist and film critic.[2]

She rendered into Romanian the works of William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Christian Morgenstern, Yiannis Ritsos, and Paul Celan. She has published more than fifty books of her own poetry.

Early life and career

Born into a Jewish family in Galaţi (her father being Iosif Cassian-Mătăsaru, a translator), they lived in Brașov between 1926 and 1935.[1] In 1935, the family moved to Bucharest, where she went to high school. She took drawing lessons with George Loewendal and M. H. Maxy, acting lessons with Beate Fredanov and Alexandru Finți, piano and musical composition lessons with Theodor Fuchs, Paul Jelescu, Mihail Jora and Constantin Silvestri.[1]

In 1944 she entered the Literature Department of Bucharest University, but abandoned her studies after one year.[1]

She published her first poem, Am fost un poet decadent ("I Used to Be a Decadent Poet") in the daily România liberă in 1945,[3] and her first poetry collection, La scara 1/1 (""Scale 1:1") in 1947. It was labeled "decadent poetry" in a Scînteia article in 1948.[1][4] Scared by that fierce criticism, she then turned to writing in the proletkult and socialist-realistic fashion.[1][5] This phase lasted for about eight years.[4]

At the beginning of her career, Cassian and her first husband, Vladimir Colin, were contributors to the magazine Orizont.

She had a very close relation with Ion Barbu.[4]

Cassian travelled to the United States as a visiting professor in 1985. During her stay in America, a friend of hers, Gheorghe Ursu, was arrested and subsequently beaten to death by the Securitate for possessing a diary. The diary contained several of Cassian's poems which satirized the Communist regime and the authorities thought to be inflammatory. Hence, she decided to remain in the US.

She was granted asylum in the United States, and continued to live in New York City.[6] Eventually, she became an American citizen.[7]

In the US, she published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines.[8]

Family

Cassian married Vladimir Colin in 1943 (divorced in 1948), and later Al. I. Ştefănescu.[1] In the US, she was married to Maurice Edwards.[9] Although born into a Jewish family, her second husband was Romanian Orthodox, and during their marriage, she stated that she was much closer to his religion than to Judaism, and that she had never read a page of the Talmud.[10]

Death

She died of a cardiac arrest in New York on 14 April 2014.[11][12]

Books

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ștefănescu, Alex. "La o nouă lectură: Nina Cassian" (in Romanian). Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  2. ↑ (7 March 1999). Poetry in Brief, The Independent
  3. ↑ "A murit poeta Nina Cassian. Cenușa sa va fi adusă în România" (in Romanian). Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 Ciuta, Larisa (16 April 2014). "A MURIT NINA CASSIAN. Povestea scriitoarei de care s-a indragostit Ion Barbu". Evenimentul zilei. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  5. ↑ "CASSIAN (Katz), NINA". Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  6. ↑ Gray, Channing (19 June 2008). Poet, composer, refugee at URI, The Providence Journal Archived 7 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ↑ "NINA CASSIAN". Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  8. ↑ "Romanian Poet, Dissident Nina Cassian Dies". ABC News. 16 April 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  9. ↑ "Fabuloasele aventuri ale poetei Nina Cassian, "cea mai atrăgătoare femeie urâtă din literatura română"" (in Romanian). Adevarul. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
  10. ↑ Mălăncioiu, Ileana (9 November 2005). "Riscul de a privi memoria ca zestre". România literară (in Romanian). Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  11. ↑ "Romanian poet, dissident Nina Cassian dies". The Washington Post. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  12. ↑ Fox, Margalit (18 April 2014). "Nina Cassian, Exiled Romanian Poet, Dies at 89". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
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