Europolis

9789633868492

362 pages

Amsterdam University Press

Paperback / softback $46.50

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Overview

Set in the decaying, multicultural port town of Sulina at the edge of the Danube Delta, Europolis is a hauntingly atmospheric novel that captures a world on the brink of vanishing. In this isolated outpost, where Greek, Romanian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Turkish, and Armenian characters coexist amid steamships and faded empires, the return from America of Nikola Marulis—rumored to be a wealthy émigré—sparks a wave of gossip, ambition, and dreams.
But Nikola’s homecoming is not what it seems. As illusions unravel, passions flare, and destinies collide, Europolis transforms from a tapestry of port life into a poignant meditation on disillusionment, mortality, and the slow erosion of a once-vital community.
First published in 1933 and now available in English for the first time, Bart’s masterpiece is an elegy for a town, a time, and the lost promise of modernity.

Author Bio

Eugeniu Botez (1874 –1933), who became famous for his sea sketches under the pseudonym Jean Bart, was a Romanian naval officer and writer, and a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy. He is considered a modernizer who introduced cosmopolitan themes and a crisp prose style into Romanian literature. Stephen Henighan is Professor and Head, Spanish and Hispanic Studies, University of Guelph, Canada. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford. He has published voluminously as a scholar, journalist, novelist, short story writer and translator, with sixteen books as single author, two books as collaborative author, more than fifty refereed articles and book chapters and five books as translator.