Train to Trieste

In the summer of 1977, seventeen-year-old Mona Manoliu falls in love with Mihai, a green-eyed boy who lives in Brasov, the romantic mountain city where she spends her summers. But under the Ceausescu dictatorship, paranoia infects everyone; soon Mona begins to suspect that Mihai is part of the secret police. As food shortages worsen and her loved ones begin to disappear, Mona realizes that she too must leave. Over the next twenty years, she struggles to bury her longing for the past, yet she eventually finds herself compelled to return, determined to learn the truth about her one great love.

Domnica Radulescu was born in Romania and came to the United States in 1983. She is a professor of Romance languages and literature and chair of the women’s studies program at Washington and Lee University. She has written and edited books and scholarly articles on European literature and theater, and is the founding director of the National Symposium of Theater in Academe. She lives in Lexington, Virginia, with her two sons.