Past East (provisory)

Genre: fiction / ethnical horror. As the Romanians are one of the oldest (if not the oldest) civilizations in Europe, their mythology is unbelievable rich: rich enough to export gods (see Greek goddess Demetris) or myths (check with Mr. Bram Stoker where from he borrowed Dracula). Somehow bizarrely, lots of rituals and superstitions are preserved, especially in the country side, but their meaning is lost to the carriers. Often, those remnants are present in prohibitions (don’t start an endeavor in Tuesdays, don’t sew in Thursdays or don’t stab the bread with the knife) and are mostly of Christian origins. Some other are signs of fortune / misfortune as well as predestination (if an owl calls repeatedly in the neighborhood, somebody is going to die soon) Still, there is an under-layer that sometimes erupts violently over the surface: few years ago, the community of a small village unearthed a dead man, chopped his head, tore off the heart from the chest, burned it to ashes and drank the cinders mixed with water. I have no doubt the sons or daughters of those barbaric men use a touch-on-screen tablet. Well, my novel focuses on this aspect: the coexistence of modern technology and rational thinking with deep rooted superstitions (sometimes called beliefs), a few attested continuously since Neolithic!

Setup: The novel setting is in Romania, during the last years of communism, where I grow up. I do not abuse the political references, whatsoever. More present is the social atmosphere of those times. Although in the narration are embedded a few first person experience cameos, this is not an autobiographical work.