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Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana (1942- ) was born in Otilia Coman in Timisoara, the city where the 1989 revolt began. She is one Romania's better known poets, and has been translated into many languages. She studied at Cluj University in Transylvania, graduating in philology. She soon published three volumes of poetry: First Person plural (1965), Vulnerable Heel (1966) and Third Sacrament (1969) which received the Herder Prize. Blandiana's poems were banned in the 1980s by Ceausescu's censorship. Her poems continued to circulate by word of mouth, or scribbled on loose sheets. She was denounced in 1988 as author of a notorious poem, 'Motanul Arpagic' (Tom Cat Onion), a thinly disguised poke at the dictator. The poet became a prisoner in her own home, the post curtailed, telephone cut off, secret police in constant surveillance. After 1989, Blandiana assumed an active role in the newly formed Front for National Salvation, but soon realised that she was being manipulated by neo-Communists and resigned her position. After Ceausescu's fall she was active in the Civic Alliance and later in the Sighet Memorial Foundation. Later works by Ana Blandiana include The architecture of waves (1990) and One hundred poems (1991). Ana Blandiana has been involved with Alianta Civica since 1990, and is an organiser of annual international symposia at Sighet Museum, a former prison.
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