Aurora Cornu
Aurora Cornu (born 6 December 1931, Proviţa de Jos, Prahova County, Romania) is a Romanian-born French writer, actress, film director, and translator.
An independent spirit, she ran away three times from home, the last time permanently at the age of 14.[1] She was adopted by an uncle.[1] Her father died in prison after he was arrested for harboring a fugitive general of the defunct Romanian Royal Army (who was another of her uncles) for 11 years.[1]
She graduated from the "Mihai Eminescu" Literary School in Bucharest, and worked for a while for the poetry section of "Viața Românească" while doing translations.[2]
Her first husband was Marin Preda, to whom she was married between 1955 and 1959[3] (or 1960),[1] and whom she encouraged to publish Moromeții, whose manuscript she had found in a drawer.[4]
Her fiancé in the mid-1960s, mathematician Tudor Ganea, did not succeed in getting her out of Romania, so she saw her chance to defect to the West while she was at the poetry festival in Knokke-Het Zoute, Belgium. She settled down in Paris, France, where, being destitute, Pierre Emmanuel's wife paid her rent for several years.[2] In Paris she befriended, among others, Romanian émigrés Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, and Jean Parvulesco.[5]
Between 1967 and 1978 she was a collaborator of Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Ierunca in their literary radio program aired by Radio Free Europe.[2]
While living in France, she married Aurel Cornea, a Romanian-born French television sound engineer, who was a hostage of the pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem group known as the "Revolutionary Justice Organization" for ten and a half months in Lebanon in 1986.[2][6]
She has paid the construction costs for a church in Cornu, a church whose design was inspired by a Horia Damian drawing.[2]
In later years, she has been living in Paris and in New York City.[5]
Books
- Studenta (1954)
- Distanțe (1962)
- La Déesse au sourcil blanc (1984) ISBN 2-950057-00-4
- Poezii (1995)
- Romanian Fugue in C Sharp: A Novel and Nine Stories, ISBN 978-0595293681
- Marin Preda, Scrisori către Aurora (1998)
Translations
- Hamlet, under the pseudonym Ştefan Runcu in W. Shakespeare, Romeo şi Julieta. Hamlet, Bucureşti, 1962.[2]
Movies
- Bilocation (1973), director[7]
- Claire's Knee (1970), actress
- Love in the Afternoon (1972), actress
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Bucurestiul Cultural, nr. 7/2006" (in Romanian). Revista 22. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mărgineanu, Clara. "AURORA CORNU: "Literatura a fost singura femeie a lui Marin Preda, singura care nu l-a înşelat"" (in Romanian). Flacăra. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
- ↑ "Marin Preda, casatorit cu o evreica" (in Romanian). Evenimentul Zilei. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
- ↑ "Aurora Cornu, marea iubire a lui Preda căreia îi datorăm "Moromeţii"" (in Romanian). Adevărul. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
- 1 2 Aldulescu, Radu. "Aurora Cornu – apogeul şi începutul unei poveşti" (in Romanian). România literară. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
- ↑ "FRENCH HOSTAGE FREED IN BEIRUT; HOLIDAY GESTURE". New York Times. December 25, 1986. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
- ↑ "Bilocation". New York Times. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
External links
- Aurora Cornu at IMDb
- Interview with Aurora Cornu (Romanian)