The houses of our lives

Authors: Adriana Bittel, Ana Blandiana, Andrei Pleșu, Antoaneta Ralian, Barbu Cioculescu, Dan C. Mihăilescu, Gabriel Liiceanu, Gabriela Tabacu, Horia- Roman Patapievici, Ioana Pârvulescu, Micaela Dițescu, Monica Pillat, Radu Paraschivescu, Tania Radu, Victor Ieronim Stoichiță

The Houses of Our Lives, a special editorial project, was initiated by the architect Gabriela Tabacu and published by the prestigious Humanitas Publishing House. The book brings together in its pages famous names of the elite of contemporary society, urged to build, to reconstruct from memories and nostalgia, the House, this sacred space of life. The book's preface is signed by Ioana Pârvulescu, and the authors-architects of this publishing event are, in alphabetical order, Adriana Bittel, Ana Blandiana, Andrei Pleșu, Antoaneta Ralian, Barbu Cioculescu, Dan C. Mihăilescu, Gabriel Liiceanu, Gabriela Tabacu, Horia-Roman Patapievici, Ioana Pârvulescu, Micaela Ghițescu, Monica Pillat, Radu Paraschivescu, Tania Radu, Victor Ieronim Stoichiță. As the author of the preface tells us "The main characters in this place that does not exist on any map are the houses, the episodic characters are the people in them. People and houses spend some time together. As has been said, it is not clear whether we live in the houses or they live in us. Sometimes houses survive, even if they have been torn down, even if they have died, just as a loved one survives in those who have been close to him."

The house thus becomes the super-character of this book, it is constituted with each page, from close to close, with each memory of the one who not only crossed its threshold, but defined his being and beingness in its entrails, with whom he was once in a permanent symbiosis, a conjoining. Her image brings to life the inner space, the inner self eager to fill the void left by the physical disappearance of the building that represented an entire universe in itself, an important period of life marked by dramas, love, separations, reunions, meetings, the houses and their inhabitants, owners or temporary tenants, were invaded by history, by the communist persecution and today, through the authors' pen, come to testify after so many years of silence. From the keepers of the secrets of the lives of the past, of socially or politically significant events, the bridge between the ̕77 Earthquake and the ̕89 Revolution, they become interlocutors, companions of destiny of the owners, who have today become fundamental landmarks of post-decembrist society.

The volume The Houses of Our Lives traverses epochs and histories. A simple apartment block or manor house, it represents a chapter in the authors' lives, it bears the mystery of the person who lived in it, not only lived in it, but also marked destinies, famous works were created and read here, it seems that they contributed greatly to the birth of today's famous writers, critics or translators, it generated this state, the state of creation, it was there, somewhere, latent in the house... waiting for the opportunity to manifest itself.