"What would we humans be without a soul? Bound in a material life, deprived of dream journeys, of the beauty of hope, deprived of love and enthusiasm, we would become vague, rigid and cold objects, walking shadows trying to communicate by words whose vibrations are dead, words whose truth cannot possibly be proved. We would be machines, we would be robots, we would be nothing. Thank YOU, GOD, for having given us a soul. Through the soul, we have learned to know ourselves, to recognize the beauty of life, and to reach YOU!"

For the Romanian novelist, being put to the pitch of contemporaneousness meant shaping, with the means of large prose, the major conflicts of the society they lived in, or, for the sake of dignity, incompatible with the civic and aesthetic compromise, left, with the goal of scrutinizing it (as paradoxically as it may sound), and giving it back all its moral and manners. It is historically notorious the fact that the real Romanian literature of the period between 1947 and 1989 has been made outside the borders of the country (et pour cause), speaking both geographically and linguistically. To tell the truth, the Romanian novelist living in Romania couldn't possibly have revealed the ways of the society they belonged to, loved, and created within - a society haunted by the totalitarian delirium. That mission needed sharp nibs as soldiers. Or, such kind of nibs were to be found only out there in the free world. One of them was certainly Silvia Cinca. It is a fact that, among the writers in exile and within the Romanian borders, Cinca is the most profound, with her extremely studied constructions, and the most daring of all. I say "daring" and I mean it, for, regardless of the distance, when scratching the skin of a dictatorship whose ideological certitude still throb within the body of its aggressiveness, the risk taken is even bigger than when pricking it from the inside. "It is a long arm, the arm of Revolution" used to say the servants of the state terrorism. Under those circumstances, the incisive word of Silvia Cinca, her ruthless Romanian radiographs made to the totalitarianism, and her stubbornness in calling a spade a spade, all these make the author of The Stroke the most lucid Romanian novelist of the last decades of the twentieth century. If it were only for Scream and Comrade Dracula (about which I have written at the proper time), and the novelist's brethren in the country would have been dearly avenged for the silence imposed on them by the marionettes of the red hegemony. But fortunately, Silvia Cinca's repertoire exhibits a large range of titles, which make us again friends of the freedom of the word, and honor us.

I am bound to add a few words about Silvia Cinca's last book in Romanian Language The Stroke. And all because the optimism, the narrative force, and the lexical pirouettes adorning the peremptory discourse of her previous novels and non-fiction works, are now given shape within the pages of the present book through a transcendental meditation whose signum teaches us about the sudden anesthesia of destiny. The unexpected shapes the elementary truths of the daily existence of the main character, who carries out a sort of metaphysical journey (that is to be met also in other recent works of the author), where reality replaces fiction, and fiction turns into the triadic expression of the simple truths that are life, death, and love. By reading through The Stroke, we get the impression that Silvia Cinca is entering us into the meanders of an ancient tragedy, under the disguise imposed by the circumstances of the contemporary drama.

GEORGE ASTALOS - Author

Chief Editor of the Pluridisciplinary Magazine of Arts and Literature Nouvelle Europe Paris

Jocul nopților
Gânduri de noapte din realitatea zilei.

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Perdeaua de sticlă
Aventura minții sau prezența superterestră.

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BOLERO
Momente în ecourile sufletului.

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Memoria verde
Din oglinda vieții. Suferința pădurilor, lacrima oamenilor de bine!

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Tornada
Un roman de dragoste.

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Plutind printre stele
O carte despre actorii generatiei de aur a teatrului, filmului si timpul studentiei lor.

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Aripi in bezna
Cel de-al doilea Razboi Mondial.

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Dansezi?
"In the middle of this contemporary ordeal, thanks to truly wonderful souls, to some quite rarepeople, the Earth still receives sunlight, still benefits from the clemency of Deity towards non-perishability, the stars do shine in the night sky, and their light must be more than conciliatory. Such a human being, of a gentleness and wisdom worthy of admiration, proves to be SILVIA CINCA, writer, novelist, director, film critic with an exceptional literary activity."– George Stroia

Radiografii pentru succes
New hardcover edition of best-selling book from 1993 in Romanian revised and expanded. Published by Semne Publishing House December 2014.

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Wings In The Darkness
The Second World War.

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In 1973 she followed her husband to Greece. Together, with the whole family they established themselves in the United States in 1977. She attended the courses of English composition at the Texas University in Dallas (1978-1979) and Creative Writing at the Northern Virginia Community College (1979-1980). In 1992, she attended the Ambassador Bible College in California (by correspondence). Her short stories were published in the prestigious magazine "Short Story International", where at that time (from Romania) only Marin Preda has been accepted. Her articles are to be found in most of the Romanian periodicals in the U.S. and Western Europe.

From the beginning of her career as a writer, Silvia Cinca proved herself incredibly intellectual in most of the dogmas of the totalitarian period. In 1966, she started writing short stories in the magazine "Ateneu" (Bacau). That same year she published a volume of sketches and stories, The Cat and the Words (Literary Publishing House - editor Georgeta Dimiseanu), and was the first author of the new generation whose titles are nonconformist. This was followed by a new volume Break the Mirrors (The Eminescu Publishing House), only slightly iconoclastic as we can see; The Nonstop Express (Ion Creanga Publishing House 1971), a children's book and a love story book The Invisible Snow (Albatros edition 1973). Silvia Cinca's prose published in Romania strongly stands out by their subjects. Subjects that do not follow the official line because of their style which recalls the writings of Caragiale, Hemingway, and Truman Capote. She collaborated in the writing of sketches, short stories, commentaries, reports of films, TV articles, with prestigious publications and her books were reviewed by first class literary newspapers and magazines in the capital and in the provinces: "Romania Literara", Luceafarul", Contemporanul", "Cinema", "Cronica", and "Tribuna". Concerning film chronicles, she wrote the monograph "Jean Gabin" (Meridian Publishing House 1969), a specialized analysis and transparent portrait recalling the "lesson" given by Professor D.I. Suchianu, the veteran film critic in Romania. "Dialogue", one of her anthological sketches formed the basis of the short TV film with the same name by Georgeta Postolea and interpreted by Rodica Tapalaga (1972). Director Olimp Varasteanu created a cartoon after The Nonstop Express.

As soon as Silvia Cinca made another debut in American cultural life with her book The Night of the Rising Dead (Brunswick Publishing Company 1985), that included a selection of her earlier sketches and stories translated into English she summoned directly the most stringent subjects observed by her in the depth of Romanian sociopolitical reality. Her main objective was to point out the destructive effects of the communist system in the moral-effective level of the individual, the disturbed inter-human relationships, and of the collective soul. Likewise, the malevolence of Ceausescu's that had reached a paroxysm while the life of the people had reaches a level of despair and tragedy. In this sense, the following volumes are significant: Comrade Dracula (Moonfall Publishing Inc. 1988) and Scream (The International University Press of Missouri 1990), which speaks of Ceausescu's Romanian Era. Scream is also the first novel in contemporary literature which besides its literary value is also a warning in the literary and religious curse; the inevitable end of the dictator was predicted already in March 1989, when the manuscript was printed. In the volume X-rays for Love (with preface by playwright and poet George Astalos - Silex Publishing House, 1992, Second Edition Moonfall Press 1992), Silvia Cinca's prose announces essential transformations.

Although signs of this are already visible in the volumes Homo Spiritus and Comrade Dracula, perhaps also in other titles published in Romania, the author accepted a new epic formula. She combined the sanctity of reality with the reality of sanctity; in the epic technique - the precision of fantasy, with the fantasy precision. That illustrates outstanding philosophic and literary gifts. The Ocean, her new book of short prose, is revealing from both standpoints. X-Ray for Success (published by Contact International Publishing House of Iassy - Romania - 1993) is significant for the author's changed opinions on the world, art and literature. It extracts from the New Testament, which is naturally included in the theoretic explanation. The last two novels are: Hoot of the Owl and Forest of Angels. Member of Pen American Writers, fondator LiterArt XXI, member American-Romanian Academy, and Romanian Union Writers Silvia Cinca is recognized as one of the most talented and insightful Romanian author living outside the country.

LITERARY AWARDS: 1988 - The A.R.A. Award (American-Romanian Academy - USA) for Comrade Dracula and Homo Spiritus. The ROMFEST '92 Award (Canada) for X-Ray for Love, MNEMOS Award (Romania) for X RAY FOR SUCCES - 1993.

Silvia Cinca is a member of the Romanian Union of Writers and Pan-American Writers.

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