Doina Ruşti is a Romanianwriter, first, novelist and screenwriter&film drector. Some of her are: Fantoma din moară, 2008, , 2006, Lizoanca la 11 ani, 2009.
Biography
Doina Ruşti was brought up in a village in the south of Romania by her parents and teachers, struggling to survive in a communist world. Her blood accommodates ancestry ranging from Montenegrin to , Jews and especially Danuban Romanians, all with long names ending in -escu, most of them teachers, store keepers and horse dealers. Her childhood home in Comosteni preserved the experiences of a Balkan world, collected throughout hundreds of years. Doina Rusti's youth was spent in a house which had saved the traces of a past rich in events, carriages, coffers and period clothes, crowned by plenty of books and objects which incited her imagination. However, this world had brutally come to an end. When she was eleven, her father was murdered under mysterious circumstances, which have not been elucidated even to this . The insecurity, oppression, absurd rules and chaos installed at the end of communism blended with the fantastic universe of a village governed by ghost tales, hierophanies and underground forces, and this dramatic and magical setting inspired the novelFantoma din moară . For this novel, she was awarded The Prize of The Writers' Union of Romania.
Work
Considered one of the female voices of contemporary literature, Doina Rusti has a wide variety of topics covered in her novels with a systematic construction. Some of her books were translated into international languages. Her novel Lizoanca la 11 ani, 2009, 2017 was awarded the Ion Creangă Prize of The RomanianAcademy. It was remarked as "one of the most powerful contemporary Romanian novels", from the point of view of its themes and typology construction. On its publication, Lizoanca caused debates, as it brought to the public's attention the story of a child almost unanimously accused of the atrocities committed by the accusers. Translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, the novel had reviews and kindled debates on taboo themes, such as pedophilia, domestic abuse, the issue of children with incompetent parents. For that matter, the topic of family decay as an institution is recurrent in all the novels written by Doina Rusti. Her bestsellerManuscrisul fanariot, which novelizes a18th-century's love story, was followed by Mâța Vinerii, a tale about sorcerers and magical culinary recipes, translated into , Spanish Hungarian. These two books give a perspective on a quite controversial historical period: the 18th Phanariotcentury. The stodgy style, the poetic overlay and the narrative fluidity were hallmarks of these two books. She is also the author of the novel Omulețul roșu, which was awarded the Prize of the magazine Convorbiri Literare, and the multi-awarded Zogru, a meta-novel translated into Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Spanish. Doina Rusti brings a specific vision into literature, exhibited throughout all strata of her work, but especially from a linguistic point of view. The creativity of expression lends the marker of her writing. She also wrote a number of short stories, published in periodicals and anthologies.
Style
Taking an interest in both the fantastic and realist genres, Doina Rusti succeeds in writing as persuasively about the atrocities of the contemporary world and high ideals. Her novels often feature rapists, murderers, people who are starving, become corrupt or consumed by trivial commitments, reminding us of Faulkner's typologies – writer who has always inspired her. Doina Rusti also brings to life fantastic characters, elves, sprites, ghosts, magical cats and sorcerers, which prompted some critics to compare her work with Chagall, with Bulgakov's, Süskind's and Márquez'sDoina Ruști#cite note-15|. The diversified themes that are strongly related to the present, as well as the ability of Doina Rusti of switching between registers, place her among the writers of contemporary Romanian literature.
