Founded an initiative to promote Romanian literature in translation.
Only about 3% of the literature published in the United States is translated. These figures do not represent new titles. The majority of the translations are what is called a “backlist” or a title that was published in the past and is reprinted (Pinocchio is a backlist, and Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky is a backlist). New titles make up less than 1%. For Romanian literature, this problem is compounded by scarce public funding for translations and a lack of institutional assistance to navigate the American literary market. According to the Publishers Weekly translation database, fewer than 70 Romanian books have been translated from Romanian into English since 2008.
I started The Romanian Bookshelf project while doing an MA in literary studies at the University of Amsterdam. It was my return to the continent after living in the US for a decade and working in advocacy and advertising. In my view, Romanian literature seemed to have a problem of branding and advocacy. I started helping translators, publishers, and authors with marketing and advocacy. I am also running a Substack newsletter with the same name. Feel free to sign-up here. In 2023, the project won fiscal representation from the NY Foundation for the Arts. In 2024, I published an analysis of the Romanian-English translation ecosystem. My partner Radu Becus did the design and branding.
Visual identity
The starting point of the project was a realization that the IKEA Billy, the most popular bookshelf in the world, was probably made with wood sourced from Romania. I twisted the IKEA Billy instruction manual to include Romanian elements such as the porcelain ballerina, a once-kitschy household item that resided on the bookshelves (just ask any Eastern European). The intent behind the visual identity is to reclaim and reframe familiar cultural symbols, offering a fresh lens on Romanian literature in translation.
At its center stands the porcelain ballerina figurine, now making the ubiquitous IKEA Billy unequivocally Romanian.
The color palette is drenched in blue, a reworking of old communist-era propaganda that once framed blue as “the wealth of our sea and rivers.” Here, blue is reclaimed as a symbol of flow, access, and openness.
