Imagine walking in a crowded public square toward a shopping district near your home with your family just days before Christmas. Gunfire suddenly erupts. People panic; they run, scream, and pray. Your father’s heavy arm forces you to the ground where you lay motionless to escape the havoc.
This scene was real. It served as the cusp of a week-long struggle that became the Romanian Revolution of 1989, and author Aura Imbarus experienced it firsthand in her hometown of Sibiu. Her memoir Out of the Transylvania Night offers a unique perspective of Romania’s revolution and the ousting of its communist dictator through her eyes as an 18-year-old.
Aura transports readers to the darker days of Romania when Nicolae Ceausescu was at the communist helm, dragging the nation into times of hunger. Her meticulous descriptions of her thoughts, actions, and the oppressive environment that blanketed her town create a daunting depiction of a people terrorized by the securitate who, at any time, might inform higher authorities of their “crimes” of buying contraband goods like American cigarettes or even Belgian chocolate.
The author grew up watching her cousins, who endured torture and starvation at the hands of the communist securitate for trying to escape Romania for freedom in Germany, and her father, who refused to join the Communist Party despite being pressured. They became her archetypes of persistence and noble character.
One feels her patriotism for her homeland, but more, her yearning for freedom. Aura is a strong spirit, not one to succumb to terror from living in an oppressive environment.
In her memoir, we meet those closest to Aura, including Buni, her grandma who, while living, serves as Aura’s moral support and fashion collaborator and, upon her death, seems to be a prescient angel guiding her throughout life’s transitions.
We also meet her beloved mother, father, and Michael, her dream boyfriend who eventually becomes her husband.
Disenchanted with life in Sibiu after the revolution and constantly striving toward new heights professionally and academically, Aura finds herself in the mid-1990s with a master’s degree in British and American literature from Lucian Blaga University, a teaching position there, three other jobs, a boyfriend in Michael, and a desire for more.
In 1996 she found herself staring at a golden ticket of sorts—one step closer to the “land of plenty”—after entering a Green Card lottery for the United States. Elevated by the opportunity to fulfill her dreams of living among palm trees in a free land, she continued the lottery process and eventually made it to the “City of Angels” with Michael.
Although their transition to a new life in the United States had humble beginnings—they carried four suitcases and a small amount of cash—Aura’s and Michael’s intrepid drive to live the American Dream quickly yields fruit as they begin working tirelessly and start consuming: fashionable clothing, fashionable cars, and properties in fashionable locales.
But the American Dream is a complicated animal. Aura finds that her pursuit of precious material items in the “land of the free” leads to a scarcity of another precious resource: time. As time moves on, her relationship with Michael erodes, and she is struck by tribulation after tribulation with her mother’s deadly illness, the death of a friend, and a robbery that left her home a wreck and her expensive heirlooms representing generations of Imbarus’s wealth and sophistication gone.
Will Aura ever reconnect with her Romanian roots? Will she and Michael resolve their differences and return to each other?
More than a unique and inspirational Cinderella story, Out of the Transylvania Night, with its impeccable descriptions, is a story of one’s pursuit of freedom and quest for self-actualization. It might also serve as a valuable historical document, portraying a unique period of time in which one person could experience such a wide polarity of political and social environments in a single lifetime.
This scene was real. It served as the cusp of a week-long struggle that became the Romanian Revolution of 1989, and author Aura Imbarus experienced it firsthand in her hometown of Sibiu. Her memoir Out of the Transylvania Night offers a unique perspective of Romania’s revolution and the ousting of its communist dictator through her eyes as an 18-year-old.
Aura transports readers to the darker days of Romania when Nicolae Ceausescu was at the communist helm, dragging the nation into times of hunger. Her meticulous descriptions of her thoughts, actions, and the oppressive environment that blanketed her town create a daunting depiction of a people terrorized by the securitate who, at any time, might inform higher authorities of their “crimes” of buying contraband goods like American cigarettes or even Belgian chocolate.
The author grew up watching her cousins, who endured torture and starvation at the hands of the communist securitate for trying to escape Romania for freedom in Germany, and her father, who refused to join the Communist Party despite being pressured. They became her archetypes of persistence and noble character.
One feels her patriotism for her homeland, but more, her yearning for freedom. Aura is a strong spirit, not one to succumb to terror from living in an oppressive environment.
In her memoir, we meet those closest to Aura, including Buni, her grandma who, while living, serves as Aura’s moral support and fashion collaborator and, upon her death, seems to be a prescient angel guiding her throughout life’s transitions.
We also meet her beloved mother, father, and Michael, her dream boyfriend who eventually becomes her husband.
Disenchanted with life in Sibiu after the revolution and constantly striving toward new heights professionally and academically, Aura finds herself in the mid-1990s with a master’s degree in British and American literature from Lucian Blaga University, a teaching position there, three other jobs, a boyfriend in Michael, and a desire for more.
In 1996 she found herself staring at a golden ticket of sorts—one step closer to the “land of plenty”—after entering a Green Card lottery for the United States. Elevated by the opportunity to fulfill her dreams of living among palm trees in a free land, she continued the lottery process and eventually made it to the “City of Angels” with Michael.
Although their transition to a new life in the United States had humble beginnings—they carried four suitcases and a small amount of cash—Aura’s and Michael’s intrepid drive to live the American Dream quickly yields fruit as they begin working tirelessly and start consuming: fashionable clothing, fashionable cars, and properties in fashionable locales.
But the American Dream is a complicated animal. Aura finds that her pursuit of precious material items in the “land of the free” leads to a scarcity of another precious resource: time. As time moves on, her relationship with Michael erodes, and she is struck by tribulation after tribulation with her mother’s deadly illness, the death of a friend, and a robbery that left her home a wreck and her expensive heirlooms representing generations of Imbarus’s wealth and sophistication gone.
Will Aura ever reconnect with her Romanian roots? Will she and Michael resolve their differences and return to each other?
More than a unique and inspirational Cinderella story, Out of the Transylvania Night, with its impeccable descriptions, is a story of one’s pursuit of freedom and quest for self-actualization. It might also serve as a valuable historical document, portraying a unique period of time in which one person could experience such a wide polarity of political and social environments in a single lifetime.
