The latest addition to my website is Dumitru Tsepeneag‘s Hotel Europa (Hotel Europa). This is a hilarious, anarchic novel about an unnamed Romanian narrator (clearly based on Tsepeneag himself) who is living in France, married to a French woman, and who is trying to write a novel but is not sure what he wants the novel to be about or where it is going when he does start. However, it soon becomes apparent that the novel we are reading is the novel he is writing. Much of it is about events in Romania following the overthrow of the Ceaușescus in December 1989. He himself had accompanied a Médecins sans Frontières convoy to Bucharest at that time and the journey and the people he met start to form the basis of his novel. In particular, we follow the story of Ion, a young Romanian, who was involved in the 1989 demonstrations but then decides to slowly make his way across Europe to Paris, to escape the chaos of Romania. He encounters thugs who steal his large gambling winnings, several hotels called Hotel Europa, UFOs, women who may or may not be his missing girlfriend and other strange phenomena. It is a wonderful read both funny and serious.