Train to Trieste

As I mentioned earlier I 'm again very much into reading books set in Middle/Eastern Europe. I guess, for me, nothing beats The Cellist of Sarajevo, the best book I read last year and one that immediately went into my all time favorites list, but there really is so many interesting novels set in Middle/Eastern Europe. I'm writing Middle/Eastern because geographically some of those countires are in the middle of Europe (actually Finland is geographically much more in the East than many of these countries) and here in the EU we are trying to learn and talk of them as Middle Europe, where as back in the day all those now ex-communist coutries were called Eastern Europe for a political reason. 

I have had a pause in reading novels about the Balkans or any of the other Middle/Eastern coutries, but I must say, that I wanted to read Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu immediately when I say it in a bookstore simply because of its name. Back then, however, I tried to be reasonable and did not buy it. :)

The copy I read now is form the library. But Trieste! That town has always had a magical sound in my mind! It is a port from where ships left for exotic places already in the 18th century, and I have wanted to visit Trieste for a long time. Thus, it was the name of the book that made me pick it up in the first place.

Trieste in the book, is not only a real town, but also a symbol. The train to Trieste is a symbol of freedom, and a concrete way to freedom for some in Ceausescu's Romania. And that is what the novel is really about. It is a story of Mona Manoliu, a young woman from Bucharest, who falls in love with Mihai, a boy from another town. They meet during holidays and at one point Mihai even moves to Bucharest, alledgely to be closer to Mona. But in Romania in the 70s and 80s it is difficult to know who to trust, who is for Ceausescu's dictatorship and who is against it, who works for the resistant and who is an informer. Mona begins to doubt Mihai. Maybe he is a member of the secret police after all? When Mona's father gets repeatedly harrassed by the secret police and some people close to her die in suspect circumstances, Mona's parents think it better that she leaves the country. The next twenty years Mona tries to build a new life as an exile in a new country, but in the end the loose ends of her past make her return to her native Romania.

I liked this novel a lot. I liked Radulescu's writing and I especially enjoyed the first half of the book that was set in Romania. At some point during the story of Mona's exile years I lost my interest just a tiny bit, but it was soon rekindled, and the ending was just perfect. I would warmly recommend Train to Trieste to anyone interested in a book set in Romania or really for anyone wanting to read a love story that has a bit more substance to it and is not so straight forward than many others.

Random House's page about Domnica Radulescu and her book is here.

An interesting video interview of Domnica Radulescu can be found here.