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Swiss-Romanian author Dana Grigorcea speaks to New Books in German about her prize-winning novel Dracula Park, translated into English by Imogen Taylor in 2023. Dana Grigorcea will be appearing at the Edge-Lit Festival in Derby in September 2024.
In post-Communist Romania, on the border with Transylvania, the sleepy little town of B. is losing its young people to the West. A young painter who has returned from Paris and her eccentric great-aunt seem unconcerned with the decline of the town, until a mutilated corpse is found in the family crypt of Prince Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula. As the world’s attention turns to B., the mayor and his son take advantage of the situation and turn the town into a vampire-inspired theme park. Tourists flock to it, but beneath the surface ancient horrors live on.
Read an interview excerpt with New Books in German (NBG) below and attend her talk at the Edge-Lit Festival in Derby on 7 September 2024.
NBG: What was your inspiration for your third novel, Dracula Park?
DG: As a Romanian, the theme of Dracula was passed on to me almost from birth through stories, myths and superstitions. But there were several triggering moments that led me to write the novel. A few years ago, the Romanian Minister of Tourism wanted to build a theme park called Dracula Park, a kind of gothic Disneyland for all the vampire fans who come to Romania. This proposal divided the population: some were in favour and bought shares in the company, others were very much opposed because it would have been necessary to clear an ancient forest, and it was a highly corrupt project. Even King Charles – then still Prince of Wales – got involved in the debate. He owns an estate in Transylvania, with organic gardens, and is keen to preserve the area. This gave me the idea to write a novel about corrupt politicians who build a kitsch vampire park and are then haunted by vampires themselves.
Then there was another moment: when a member of my family died, I went down to one of our family vaults, with a small man and a huge hammer, to free the oldest grave. When we opened the tomb and I got on my hands and knees to pick up the few tiny bones of the eighteenth-century grandmother, and saw the four iron lions on the corners of the coffin and her tiny shoes, probably shrunk, I knew there was more to this tomb than I could grasp at the time… There was a whole story in that grave.
Dracula Park by Dana Grigorcea is a breathtaking, atmospheric tale of revenge, extremism and the longing for a strong leader, for a strict, cruel judge - like Dracula. Translated by Imogen Taylor and published by Adventure Books.
NBG: Dracula Park is such an intriguing novel, full of fascinating details about post-Ceaușescu Romanian culture. What was it like researching the book?
DG: I didn’t have to do a lot of research before writing. I have been researching these stories for years, following these topics, and they finally found their form. It was deeply satisfying to write this novel at last, because I noticed from the beginning that it miraculously gets to the heart of the whole history of Romania: the recent history, the history of the Communist dictatorship, but also the history before it and everything that is unprocessed and repeats itself. Dracula is the perfect motif for writing about Romania, and not only about Romania, by the way. It depicts those undead subjects that we thought had been buried a long time ago and relegated to the past, but which come out of their graves with hideous faces. The undead themes we find everywhere are nationalism, chauvinism, and the almost morbid desire for a strong hand, for a strict leader who puts things in order.
My ambition was to write the ultimate Dracula novel, to bring all the stories about Dracula together into an entertaining narrative. The book is therefore full of references to books and movies, although you don’t need to know the books and movies to feel included in the reading. It was important for me to include the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler, a prince from the Middle Ages, who inspired Bram Stoker to create the character of Dracula. He is celebrated as a hero in Romania to this day and has a remarkable biography, much closer to Dracula than Bram Stoker or Francis Ford Coppola would have suspected.
NBG: You are no stranger to literary prizes and nominations with your earlier novels, but in 2021 Die Nicht Sterben (the original German title of Dracula Park) was longlisted for the German Book Prize and won the Swiss Book Prize. What impact did this have on your literary life?
DG: I had about four literary events a week for three years. It was hard work, I had to get used to it. Then the book became school reading in Switzerland and I suddenly had a young audience that I hadn’t expected. I received lots of handwritten letters, which I hadn’t expected either, and I am increasingly invited to give speeches at graduation ceremonies, at book fairs, at the opening of the opera season. I had to acquire a formal wardrobe, to get out of my jeans and away from my comfortable life. I was recently knighted by the Romanian president for services to culture. And now with the translations of the book – especially with the French translation – I am on the road a lot. I used to write at home, now I write on trains and in station cafes. Actually, that’s nice too.
NBG: Your work has been translated into ten languages. What does it mean to you to have your books published in different languages, and how does it affect your perception of your writing in German?
DG: My experience with the translated books strengthens my assumption that the great stories are universal. Beyond the small ‘folklorisms’, which in turn are only decoration, we all understand each other. When I write, I have images in front of me, scenes. And I seek linguistic access to these scenes before they evaporate like dreams after waking up.
I have a particularly close relationship with translation because I live in Switzerland as a native Romanian and write in German. There are words that, depending on the culture, have a different reverberation chamber. A good translator takes this into account. And it is very important that the rhythm of the sentences and paragraphs is right. I structure my books like symphonies. I am lucky that all my translators are avid readers, smart and meticulous, with a good sense of rhythm. The English translator, Imogen Taylor, is absolutely brilliant. I have set up an open platform for all my translators, where we exchange ideas. The conversations we have about translatability inspire me immensely as an author.
