Nina Cassian (pen nameofRenée Annie Cassian-Mătăsaru;[1] 27 November 1924, in Galați – 14 April 2014, in New York City) was a Romanian poet, children's book writer, translator, journalist, accomplished pianist and composer, and film critic.[2] She spent the first sixty years of her life in Romania until she moved to the United States in 1985 for a teaching job. A few years later Cassian was granted permanent asylum and New York City became her home for the rest of her life. Much of her work was published both in Romanian and in English.
Nina Cassian was born into a Jewish family in Galați in 1924, the only child of Iosif Cassian-Mătăsaru, a translator, and an amateur singer.[3] In 1926 the family moved to Brașov. Cassian's fascination with languages is said to date back to that time of her childhood since this is when she started spending time with children from the German and Hungarian community.[1][3] In 1935, the family moved to Bucharest, where Cassian attended a girl's high school in the Jewish neighborhood.[3]
She frequented left-wing intellectual circles and joined the Union of Communist Youth at age 16.[4] In 1944 she entered the Literature Department of the University of Bucharest, but abandoned her studies after one year.[1]
In the mid-40s Cassian started to find her place in the literary scene in Romania. She was married to the young poet Vladimir Colin in 1943 (their marriage lasted until 1948) and had a very close relation with Ion Barbu.[5] One of Barbu's poems, Ut algebra poesis ("As Algebra, So Poetry"), was written for her in 1946.[6] Most interestingly though, Cassian also formed a very close friendship with the famous poet Paul Celan during the time he lived in Bucharest (1945–1947). Along with other writers and artists, Celan and Cassian played surrealist games such as "Questions and Answers" or "Ioachim", which is the Bucharest version of André Breton's famous game, Exquisite corpse.[7] Cassian and Celan bonded over their fascination for languages and used multilingualism as an inspiration for their work.[7]
In 1945 Cassian published her first poem, Am fost un poet decadent ("I Used to Be a Decadent Poet") in the daily România Liberă,[8] and her first poetry collection, La scara 1/1 ("Scale 1:1") in 1947. These early publications were greatly influenced by French modernist poets she had spent time with, especially the surrealist writers are said to have had a lasting influence on Cassian.[3] It was labeled "decadent poetry" in a Scînteia article in 1948.[1][5] Scared by that fierce criticism, she then turned to writing in the proletkult and socialist-realistic fashion.[1][9] This phase lasted for about eight years.[5]
This is also when Cassian turned to writing children's books, such as Copper Red and the Seven Dachsies (which was published in English in 1985 after it had become a bestseller in Romania), and children's stories, such as Tigrino and Tigrene (which was written in verse and published in English in 1986, adapted from the Romanian original Povestea a doi pui de tigru, numiţi Ninigra şi Aligru).[10] In an interview in 1986, she explains why she made the choice to focus on children's literature: “It was in 1950, during the dogmatic period in Romania. Socialist realism is, unfortunately, characterized by the restraining of structures and styles and vocabulary. [...] So when I was asked to write in a rigid and simplified manner, I tried to do my best, but after awhile, I switched to literature for children because it was the only field where metaphors were still allowed, where imagination was tolerated and assonance was permitted.”[10] At least some of her children's stories and books have been translated to English but are not available in bookstores anymore today.
Cassian was later married to Al. I. Ștefănescu.[1] Although born into a Jewish family, he was Romanian Orthodox, and during their marriage, she stated that she was much closer to his religion than to Judaism, and that she had never read a page of the Talmud.[11]
Cassian travelled to the United States as a visiting professor for creative writing at New York University in 1985.[3] During her stay in America, a friend of hers, Gheorghe Ursu, was arrested and subsequently beaten to death by the Securitate for possessing a diary. The diary contained several of Cassian's poems which satirized the Communist regime and the authorities thought to be inflammatory. Hence, she decided to remain in the US.
She was granted asylum in the United States, and continued to live in New York City.[12] Eventually, she became an American citizen.[13]
In the US, she started writing poems in English and published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines.[14] Some of these poems were also published in collections, for example Life Sentence in 1990 and Take My Word for It in 1998, both of which are still available today.
In the US, she was married to Maurice Edwards.[15]
Povestea a doi pui de tigru numiți Ninigra și Aligru, Bucharest, 1969
Cronofagie. 1944-1969, Bucharest, 1970
Recviem, Bucharest, 1971
Marea conjugare, Bucharest, 1971
Atât de grozavă și adio. Confidențe fictive, Bucharest, 1971; Second edition (Confidențe fictive. Atât de grozavă și adio și alte proze), Bucharest, 1976
Loto-Poeme, Bucharest, 1971
Spectacol în aer liber. O (altă) monografie a dragostei, foreword by Liviu Călin, Bucharest, 1974
Între noi, copii, Bucharest, 1974
O sută de poeme, Bucharest, 1975
Viraje-Virages, bilingual edition, translated by the author, Eugene Guillevic and Lily Denis, Bucharest, 1978
De îndurare, Bucharest, 1981
Blue Apple, translation by Eva Feiler, New York, 1981
Numărătoarea inversă, Bucharest, 1983
Jocuri de vacanță, Bucharest, 1983
Roșcată ca arama și cei șapte șoricei, Bucharest, 1985
Copper Red and the Seven Dachsies, 1985
Lady of Miracles, translation by Laura Schiff, Berkeley, 1988
Call Yourself Alive, translation by Brenda Walker and Andreea Deletant, London, 1988
Life Sentence, New York-London, 1990
Cheerleader for a Funeral, translation by the author and Brenda Walker, London-Boston, 1992
Desfacerea lumii, Bucharest, 1997
Take My Word for It, New York, 1997
Something Old, Something New: Poems and Drawings, Tuscaloosa, 2002
Memoria ca zestre, Cartea I (1948–1953, 1975–1979, 1987–2003), Cartea a II-a (1954–1985, 2003–2004), Cartea a III-a (1985–2005), Bucharest, 2003–2005
Romanian Poetry from its Origins to the Present - bilingual edition English/Romanian - Daniel Ioniță (editor and principal translator) with Daniel Reynaud, Adriana Paul and Eva Foster - Australian-Romanian Academy Publishing - 2020 - ISBN978-0-9953502-8-1 ; OCLC1288167046
Born in Utopia - An anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry - Carmen Firan and Paul Doru Mugur (editors) with Edward Foster - Talisman House Publishers - 2006 - ISBN1-58498-050-8
Testament - Anthology of Romanian Verse - American Edition - monolingual English language edition - Daniel Ioniță (editor and principal translator) with Eva Foster, Daniel Reynaud and Rochelle Bews - Australian-Romanian Academy for Culture - 2017 - ISBN978-0-9953502-0-5
