The Triumph of the Water Witch

Ioana Ieronim grew up in a small town in the Carpathian Mountains, and this collection explores the loss of that once thriving community that had survived for eight centuries, before being destroyed by the imposition of a Soviet-style communism. These are poems that the poet never expected to see published. She felt compelled to write the book out of a deep, inward moral need, not just to dissent from the politics, the corruption, and the brutality of Romania's totalitarian regime, but also -- with an ever greater sense of horror -- to bear witness to the degradation of human individuality and integrity in her terrified, disintegrating country. The poems trace a personal narrative, a girl's rite of passage, thrown into sharp relief by this national tragedy.

Ioana Ieronim is now programme director for Fulbright U.S.-Romanian exchanges in Bucharest.