SCRISORI CĂTRE UN MAI TÂNĂR STUDENT

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How long have I been waiting for a book like this! Probably since my student years. Cristina Bălașa opens her books, her heart, her mind and her memories, for her collective character, always fresh, who lived or still lives in the “house of the word”: the students of the Bucharest Letters. The chosen literary convention is one full of warmth: the letter. The friendly and profound pages of Scrisori către un mai tânăr student are reminiscent, at least as a starting point, of Rilke’s Letters to a Younger Poet and Vargas Llosa’s Letters to a Younger Novelist, without losing their own timbre, that of a paradoxical melancholic joy. The book does not fall into anecdotes, petty observations, or dryness, but rises to the realm of meaning and purpose.
Of mature beauty, created in the presence of a disturbing illness, but tamed by meditation, the lines of this epistolary work have numerous memorable formulations: they would deserve to be, student-like, underlined.
Rarely have I seen today such a beneficial trust in the written word and so much good born from the loneliness of the long-distance reader! Through the most natural metamorphosis from Letters, yesterday’s reader has become, behold, today’s writer.
Ioana Pârvulescu