Elena Farago

Elena Farago made her début at the age of twenty-four in România Muncitoare (Working Romania) newspaper, under the penname Fatma. In 1903, she began publishing in Sămănătorul (The Sower), a literary magazine, still under the same penname, and in 1906 she published a collection of poems under her real name. She settled in Craiova, where she spent the rest of her life, and, inspired by the ideas Working Romania, she took part in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1907. She was arrested but released when historian and politician Nicolae Iorga, her friend and confidant, intervened. A year later, she published the collections Whispers from the Shadows and Free Translations, both of which received Romanian Academy awards. In 1913, she published From the Mystery of the Old Crossroads and collections of poems for children. At the invitation of Eugen Lovinescu, she began to contribute poems to Sburătorul, which were subsequently collected in Whispers of Dusk (1920). The same year, she published From Father Christmas’s Sack, a collection for children. Both collections received Romanian Academy awards. She went on to publish another three collections of poetry: Selected Poems (1924), I Didn’t Bow the Knee (1926), and Poems (1937), as well as children’s books.

In 1937, her complete works were awarded the National Prize for Literature. The critics unanimously regarded her as a poet of the first rank. Her correspondence with Eugen Lovinescu stands as proof of the affection and appreciation that bound poet and critic over the years.

Her poetry, of which her collections for children in particular have stood the test of time, covered a host of themes: from her intimate lyric poetry to her work in the symbolist vein and her socially engaged poetry, what shines through is an ethos of compassion for her fellow human beings and the world. She died in 1954 in Craiova, a city whose cultural and intellectual life was forever marked by her ebullient presence.