Acta Universitatis Danubius. Relationes Internationales, Vol 8, No 2 (2015)

Abstract

The exotic and maritime Romanian novel is represented by only few titles; among them we can mention: “Europolis” (1933) by Jean Bart, “All Sails Up!” (1954) by Radu Tudoran and “The Mediterranean” by Panait Istrati. While “All Sails Up!” is a novel of hope and escape, a novel of adventure on the seas and oceans of the world, “Europolis” is a novel of return, of lost hopes and provincial failure. That is why the word “nothing” is obsessively used as a leitmotif of futility and transience. However, this is a charming and melancholic book about the world of Sulina of other times. A picturesque, enterprising and exotic world, populated by Greek, English, Armenian, Romanian and Jewish merchants and sailors, opened towards a suffocating water land between the Danube Delta and the Black Sea.