Florin Irimia: A kínai kisautók rejtélye [The mystery of the Chinese toy cars]. Hungarian translation by Szabolcs Szonda. Tîrgu Mureș, 2022.

Category: Fiction
Pages: 288
Cover: paperback
ISBN 978-606-8957-42-5

About the author and the translator:

Florin Irimia (1976, Iași) writer, translator, Assistant Professor at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași. Books: Defekt (a roman awarded at the 2013 Festival of First Bookers in Chambéry); O fereastră întunecată (roman, 2012); Câteva lucruri despre tine (roman, 2014), Misterul mașinuțelor chinezești (roman, 2017), Bărbatul din spatele ceții (roman, 2021). Szabolcs Szonda (1974, Sfântu Gheorghe) translator, Director of the Covasna County Library. He authored two books: Kiegyezés a tükörrel (poems, 1998); Vagyontárgyalás (poems, 2002). Some of his translations: Simona Popescu: Xilofon (1998); Ardian-Christian Kuciuk: A hattyú feltalálásának éve (2005); Simona Popescu: Vedlések (2008); Dan Lungu: Tyúkok a mennyben (2016); Alexandru Mușina: Macska-e a cica? (2020.)

About the book:

Florin Irimia’s book is a unique coming-of-age novel: a journey through familiar yet surprising spiritual landscapes, with a thrillingly personal approach. A bundle of forty stories, which can be read as stand-alone, in which the chapter titles are often key concepts in the search for self and selfhood: the places and prominent figures of childhood homes and imagination, family members and relationships, lives and food, emotions and senses, objects and moods. The storytelling follows the ups and downs of lifelong adulthood, at a time when it was an event for a Romanian child to pick up a Rubik’s cube, for example. The way the mosaic pieces of memory recall are put together is somewhat similar to the way a cube is put together.