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    When Angels Sing: Poems and Prose of Magda Isanos
    When Angels Sing: Poems and Prose of Magda Isanos
    When Angels Sing: Poems and Prose of Magda Isanos
    Ebook145 pages50 minutes

    When Angels Sing: Poems and Prose of Magda Isanos

    By A.K. Brackob, Alexandra Chirita and Elisabeta Isanos-Goian

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    Magda Isanos (1916-1944) ranks among the greatest poets in the history of Romanian literature. When Angels Sing: Poetry and Prose of Magda Isanos presents, for the first time, English language versions of her writings, revealing their beauty, sensitivity, and aura of mysticism, along with a premonition of impending doom. One of the most remarkable female voices of her generation, the poetry and prose of Magda Isanos mirror the troubled era in which she lived, as well as the tragedy of her own life. The themes expounded in her literary works are universal, reflecting a wide spectrum of emotions. When Angels Sing is the first English language edition of poems and prose by this remarkable Romanian writer. It includes an introduction to the poet\u2019s life and work by A.K. Brackob, along with a postscript by the poet\u2019s late daughter, Elisabeta Isanos. A series of original illustrations by Romanian artist, Alexandra Chiri?a give visual expression to the literary creations of Magda Isanos. When Angels Sing is a book that belongs in any representative collection of world literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCenter for Romanian Studies
    Release dateApr 17, 2019
    ISBN9781592111336
    When Angels Sing: Poems and Prose of Magda Isanos

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      Book preview

      When Angels Sing - A.K. Brackob

      Introduction

      Although her death at only twenty-eight years old ended her promising literary career prematurely, Magda Isanos ranks among the greatest poets in the history of Romanian literature. Born in the northeastern part of Romania, in the city of Iași, at the Socola hospital in the afternoon of April 17, 1916, her family had emigrated from Transylvania to Moldavia some generations earlier. Magda was the first of five daughters of Mihai and Eliza Isanos, both of whom were doctors, having met while attending medical school in Iași. Following World War I and the reunification of Bessarabia with Romania, after a long period of occupation by the Russian Empire that had begun in 1812, the family moved to Chișinău where the future poet grew up and attended school.

      Magda Isanos began writing poems at an early age, making her debut in the student magazine Licurici in 1932 at the tender age of sixteen. This marked the beginning of a fruitful literary career as she began to publish poems in many of the major cultural journals of the time.

      After finishing high school in Chișinău, Isanos returned to the city of her birth in 1934 to enter law school at the University of Iași. She also took courses in philology and philosophy, in keeping with her passion for literature and culture. During the period between the two world wars, the former capital of Moldavia became the cultural capital of Romania and proved to be a vibrant and exciting environment for the beautiful young poet. She became active in a group of writers centered around the cultural magazine, Insemnări ieșene, founded by the famous poet and writer George Topȋrceanu. At the same time, the young poet maintained her ties with Chișinău, the city of her youth, periodically publishing poems in the most important cultural journal published in that region, Viaţa Basarabiei.

      Following a brief, failed marriage, Magda met a fellow writer, Eusebiu Camilar. The two fell in love and were married in Iași on March 31, 1939. The tragedy that accompanied the outbreak of the war later that same year, leading to the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and northern Bucovina, and the Hungarian occupation of northern Transylvania in 1940, marred the lives of the young couple. Though appalled at the communist takeover of the region where she grew up, Magda Isanos remained firm in her opposition to the war for humanitarian reasons.

      The poet’s disdain for violence is reflected not only her poetical works, but also in her prose writings. In one passage condemning the atrocities of the fascists during the war, she writes No one can choose his parents or his nation, yet you, the young fascists, found that every Jew was guilty and deserved death. She went on to decry the youths who are poisoned by totalitarian doctrines; young people became so easily assassins of Professor Iorga and others, less well-known, but people equally as innocent, these young people who hate life with the same passion that they should naturally love.

      The miseries of war also aggravated her health problems; always frail, she suffered from a heart condition. Her infirmity may help to account for the obsession with death that pervades many of her poems. When reading her verses, one is left with the sensation that the poet sensed her own approaching end. Shortly before her death, in a play she penned with her husband Eusebiu Camilar, she prophetically wrote, If I knew that by my death a drop of injustice in the world might change, I’m ready to die ...

      Despite this aura of impending doom, the war years also brought Magda Isanos two of the greatest joys in her life, the birth of her only child, Elisabeta, and the publication of her first volume of poems, Poezii (Iași 1943). Her literary activity continued throughout this whole period, as she wrote not only poems, but short stories and articles as well.

      Forced to flee from Iași in 1944 as the Soviet armies crossed the Dniester and later the Prut rivers and entered into Romanian territory, the young couple took refuge in Bucharest. Tragedy struck on the night of 5-6 June 1944 when Soviet air bombardment decimated the poet’s home in Iași, destroying many of her manuscripts. The frailty of the young poet was enhanced by the brutal Soviet occupation of the country following 23 August 1944 when

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