Interview with Florin Bican

Ever since he returned to Romania, 56 year-old writer and translator Florin Bican has been trying to stimulate local children’s literature, which has been overwhelmed by translations after 1990. Publishing houses refuse to take a chance on Romanian authors, although there are writers with realist approaches interested in this field.

There is a heap of criticism levelled at the phrase “literatura pentru copii” (“literature for children” – the translation of “children’s literature” into Romanian, trans. note). Could we use it in such a way, given the fact that books meant for children are actually projections of childhood made by grown-ups?

They are, indeed, projections made by grown-ups, because they are the ones writing them most of the time. For small children, it’s the grown-ups who make the selection, albeit with all the best intentions in mind. After the children have access to the books recommended by the grown-ups, they end up searching for themselves and talking to each other. If it’s worded properly by saying “literature for children”, I don’t really know. It’s the middle road. I’d like it if it were called “literature with children.” When I was little, I used to love reading books whose main heroes were children. When I was nine and the heroes were 10 or 12, I already regarded them as grown-up and felt very good in their company. The sad part is that I still enjoy children’s books and I still relate to the older heroes (laughing). When I read books with and about adults, I instinctively take a step back and view them through a critical lens. When I read books with children, I knowingly suppress all critical inclinations.

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Peter Hollindale, a British literary critic and pedagogue, claims that writing children’s literature is essentially a political act. Do you agree?

I’m not completely familiar with the context in which he asserted this, but I fully agree. It is a deeply subversive act. If we think of Lewis Carroll, his literature dynamited all the strict Victorian standards. His stories of Alice have a subversive nature not just at a social level, but also linguistically and logically. The logic everyone adhered to was turned upside down, language was explored from the perspective of ambiguity, words with multiple meanings were delivered to a reader who was encouraged to uncover all of them. This is why I enjoyed the film Alice in Wonderland. I was glad to see that Tim Burton explicitly explored this subversive dimension, the revolutionary charge of the text.

Are there such cases in Romanian children’s literature?

We have the classic case in the volume Întâmplări din grădina mea (Tales from My Garden), by Ana Blandiana, the famous cat Arpagic. It’s proof that the censors were very sensitive to this allegedly overlooked area. They read the book and they saw in Arpagic a real person with a real name. The censors assesed that the episode when Arpagic goes out for a walk and traffic grinds to a halt actually meant Ana Blandiana was comparing Ceaușescu to a cat gone berserk. After this episode, Ana Blandiana was banned from publishing and went under house arrest. This is how subversive children’s literature can be. Affecting their innocence when you write for children is probably a good vehicle for subversive messaging.

What do you mean when you say “affecting their innocence?”

When you write for children or with children, you cannot adopt an incriminating stance, you can’t point any fingers. There’s this great subversive episode in another famous story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Andersen. Everyone is cheering for the naked emperor and praising his attire, until a child musters up the courage to shout “the emperor is naked!” It’s an extraordinary moment. Everyone keeps silent and nobody dares take the boy’s side. Only the father steps in to say “it’s the voice of innocence.” As a sort of excuse. This is what I meant by affecting their innocence. […]

Interviewers: Ionuț Sociu and Ionuț Dulămiță