Book of the month: Tatiana Țîbuleac
Moldova was one of the trickiest European countries to source an English translation from when I set out to read a book from every country in 2012. After months of searching, I blind-bought The Story of An Ant by Ion Drutse, translated from the Moldovan by Iraida Kotrutse, a volume that I couldn’t help feeling […]
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Book of the month: Tatiana Țîbuleac
February 28, 2026 By Ann Morgan in Book of the month, Europe, The stories Tags: book review, books, culture, international stories, Moldova, novel, read the world, Romanian, Tatiana Țîbuleac, translation 2 Comments
[Image: Moldovan flag flying outside a brick building in an urban setting.]
That summer we self-destructed more than we ever had before, and yet we had never been more full of life. Mum looked like a houseplant that had been taken out to the balcony. I looked like a lobotomised criminal. We were, finally, a family.
Moldova was one of the trickiest European countries to source an English translation from when I set out to read a book from every country in 2012. After months of searching, I blind-bought The Story of An Ant by Ion Drutse, translated from the Moldovan by Iraida Kotrutse, a volume that I couldn’t help feeling didn’t showcase Drutse or Moldovan literature at their best.
So it was with great excitement that I learnt that an English translation of a novel by one of the Eastern European nation’s most celebrated authors would be coming from the much-respected publisher Deep Vellum press. Here, at last, was an opportunity to see more of what Moldova could offer.
The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes by Tatiana Țîbuleac, translated from the Romanian by Monica Cure, is the story of Aleksy, a misanthropic artist under long-term psychiatric treatment. At the suggestion of his doctor, he starts to write his story, focusing on the summer he and his mother spent in rural France when he was a teenager, as she endured the final stages of a terminal illness. What unfolds does not provide the clarity the medical professionals seek; instead there emerges a powerful portrait of how emotional neglect can warp a childhood, and the quest for reconciliation and peace.
This is the sort of book that would trouble people seeking the ‘spirit’ of a place in the books they read – the sort of readers who, as Monica Cure writers in her Translator’s Note, expect international stories to ‘bear the burden of ethnographic representation’. The novel is not set in Moldova. Indeed, Aleksy is not Moldovan but the grandson of Polish immigrants to London’s Haringey district. The majority of the action takes place in France. Other than in the publisher’s information, Translator’s Note and author biography, the word ‘Moldova’ does not figure in the book at all. What’s more, as Cure explains, she took the decision to render her version in a form of British English, giving the narrative a distinctive idiolect, run through with surprising rhythms.
The novel is risky in other ways too. Aleksy is a profoundly unsympathetic character, who lays into his mother from the opening sentence and drops the first of many suicide references on the second page. Yet, there is a directness and a humour to the writing that keeps us reading. ‘When they have a lot of money, people who are mentally ill are called eccentric,’ Aleksy tells us, and: ‘Dad thought that Pluto was the name of a dog, and that “activism” meant going jogging every day.’
As we read, cracks appear, allowing flashes of vulnerability to shine through, together with fragments of a backstory that form the complex mosaic of the narrator’s interior landscape. These often emerge in exceptionally beautiful writing. Remembering his little sister, Aleksy tells us: ‘she would laugh like a rainbow whose feet were being tickled’. At other points, it is the repetition of simple phrases that convey emotions that cannot be expressed directly. ‘And I shouldn’t be afraid,’ is the refrain in a chapter in which Mother shares a painful truth, telling us all we need to know about both their feelings.
In this, The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes is not a national or a regional story, but a universal tale. It is one of the most compelling and affecting novels I have read in a long time. I hope we will see more work by Țîbuleac in English very soon.
The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes by Tatiana Țîbuleac, translated from the Romanian by Monica Cure (Deep Vellum, 2026)
Picture: ‘Moldovan Mission’ by Geoff Clarke on flickr.com
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[Original source](https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/2026/02/28/book-of-the-month-tatiana-tibuleac/)