CAROLINA ILICA has been described as the most important Romanian woman poet of the second half of the Twentieth Century. Born in the village of Vidra, Vârfurile commune, Arad county, she graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, in 1975. She is Vice-president and Artistic Director of the Foundation and Cultural Organisation, the International Academy Orient-Occident and Artistic director and Chairman of the Jury of the International Festival, Curtea de Argeş Poetry Nights. A member of several International Academies and Associations of Literature, Science and Arts, she is highly productive as translator, essayist, teacher, journalist and diplomat as well as with her poetic work. She was been awarded numerous national and international prizes.

VIOLET is the expression of a woman seeking, achieving and deeply experiencing romantic and sensual love. The poems follow a similar trajectory to those of the English metaphysical poet John Donne and end with the persona equally intensely soliciting the embrace of God.

Translation from Romanian

A finalist for the Proverse Prize 2017

ADVANCE COMMENTS on VIOLET (available from the Chinese Universtiy Press, Hong Kong: an alternate paperback edition is available from kindle)

“A lyrical and satisfying collection of love poems”

—Proverse Prize Judges

“Carolina Ilica links the passion and longing of the past with the reality of today, unafraid to reflect the vulnerability and fleetingness of passion, bringing out feelings that are both strong in their longing and delicate and fragile in their existence.”

—Birgit Bunzel Linder, (Shadows in Deferment (2013; Winner of the Proverse Prize 2012), Bliss of Bewilderment, 2017).

“Carolina Ilica’s Violet is one of those works through which we can glimpse the minds of the goddesses Aphrodite and Diana – when they hunt down Adonis – if we dare to know the minds of gods at all.”

—Elbert Siu Ping Lee (Rain on the Pacific Coast, 2013)

“A sensuous, drench-dipped journey into the art of metaphysical conceit. It whispers of religious symbolism, yet teases with the pure shock of carnal innovation.”

—Hayley Ann Solomon (Celestial Promise, 2017)

ABOUT CAROLINA ILICA'S WORK AS A WHOLE

“One of our most talented women-poets – maybe the most gifted  of  all –  Carolina  Ilica  often  manages  to  change poetry into a kind of erotic magic. Like the snake seduced by the tamer’s magic flute, an irresistible sensuality opens like a spiral in the reader’s soul (...). The interesting part is that the poetess exerts her seduction lucidly, constantly preserving her sharpness, precision, even surgeon-like cruelty. Like no other poet, Carolina Ilica describes just those scenes which, by their disturbing ambiguity of chastity and guilt, create the highest erotic tension (...) as a matter of fact, Carolina Ilica distinguishes herself by a sort of ambitious hunt for the inexplicable.”

—Alex. Ştefănescu, Romania, 1975