Romanian Cultural Institute in New York / ICR New York

One of the most compelling events of this year's Flatiron Festival takes place tomorrow, Sunday, June 7, at 6 PM in New York City: a rare performance bringing together all three of Dmitri Shostakovich's sonatas for string instrument and piano in a single evening. The program features the Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 40, the Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 134, and the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147.

This extraordinary program will be brought to life by an exceptional team of artists: violinist Irina Mureșanu, pianist Asiya Korepanova, cellist Julian Schwarz, and violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt.

Performances of these three monumental works on the same program are exceptionally rare, offering audiences a unique opportunity to experience the full arc of Shostakovich's chamber music writing for strings and piano in one unforgettable evening.
We warmly encourage music lovers to attend what promises to be an intense, powerful, and deeply moving concert.

Tickets and event information: https://www.groupmuse.com/events/16356-flatiron-festival-offering-iv-shostakovich-a-life-in-three-sonatas-irina-muresanu-milena-pajaro-van-de-stadt-julian-schwarz-asiya-korepanova

🇷🇴 Today, Romania commemorates the Treaty of Trianon, signed on June 4, 1920, one of the defining moments in the country's modern history. The treaty internationally recognized the union of Transylvania with Romania and helped shape the borders of Greater Romania following the First World War.

📜 While Trianon is often remembered through the lens of diplomacy and statecraft, the Paris Peace Conference was also the setting for remarkable efforts by women who sought to influence the future of the postwar world. Though excluded from formal negotiations, they advocated for peace, self-determination, and equal rights, leaving an important but often overlooked legacy.

🎥 As we mark this day, we invite you to revisit the recording of our 2025 event, “A Feminine Trianon: Women's Role in the Paris Peace Negotiations”, featuring historian Dr. Mona L. Siegel, author of “Peace on Our Terms: The Global Battle for Women's Rights After the First World War”.

🌍 The conversation explored how women activists from around the world challenged the limitations imposed upon them and contributed to the debates that shaped the international order after World War I, including the creation of the unified Romanian state.

▶️ Watch the recording here: https://www.rciusa.info/post/a-feminine-trianon-women-s-role-in-the-paris-peace-negotiations

A FEMININE TRIANON: Women's Role in the Paris Peace Negotiations Conference & Conversation About the EventIn the shadow of the grand halls where, at the end of WWI, the Treaty of Paris was being drafted, a different kind of summit unfolded: a gathering not of generals or statesmen, but of women. They came determined to assert their voices in the post-war world. T...

📚✨ TONIGHT IN NEW YORK ✨📚

📖 Join us this evening at Rizzoli Bookstore for the final stop of Tatiana Țîbuleac and Monica Cure's North American tour celebrating the English-language release of “The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes.”

💭 How often do we get to see the inside of a parent-child relationship—the full, unglamorous psychological truth of it? Tatiana Țîbuleac's extraordinary novel goes where few do: into the unspoken traumas of family, the silences of the Romanian immigrant experience, and what it means to survive your own history.

🌟 We are delighted to welcome moderator Raluca Albu—writer, editor, and Online Literature Editor at BOMB Magazine. Born in Romania and raised in the Bronx, Albu brings a deeply personal and literary perspective to this conversation. A recipient of fellowships from the Center for Fiction, the Edward Albee Foundation, and the Millay Colony for the Arts, she has long championed international literature and literary translation.

🗣️ Together, Tatiana Țîbuleac, translator Monica Cure, and Raluca Albu will discuss the making of this remarkable novel: from writing a son's rage and a mother's dying with astonishing emotional precision to carrying that voice across languages for English-language readers.

🌍 Join us for an evening of literature, translation, memory, and conversation with three Romanian voices shaping contemporary literary culture across borders.
📍 Rizzoli Bookstore, New York
🗓️ June 4
⏰ 6:00 PM
🎟️ RSVP: https://www.rciusa.info/events/an-evening-with-tatiana-tibuleac-and-monica-cure

📚 A Memorable Evening with Tatiana Țîbuleac and Monica Cure at Madison Street Books in Chicago

✨ Last night, Tatiana Țîbuleac’s North American tour arrived in Chicago for a memorable evening at Madison Street Books, where readers gathered to celebrate the English-language publication of "The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes", released by Deep Vellum Publishing in Monica Cure’s translation.

🎙️ The event featured a thoughtful and engaging conversation between Tatiana Țîbuleac, Monica Cure, and translator Ali Kinsella, whose insightful moderation guided the discussion through the novel’s emotional and literary landscape. Together, they explored the challenges of literary translation, the relationship between language and memory, and the ways in which fiction can illuminate grief, reconciliation, identity, and the complexity of family bonds.

📖 Throughout the evening, Tatiana reflected on the origins of "The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes" and the emotional intensity that has resonated with readers across Europe and beyond. Monica Cure offered fascinating insights into the process of bringing the novel into English, discussing the challenges of translating its lyrical voice, emotional depth, and stylistic precision. Ali Kinsella enriched the conversation with her perspective as a distinguished translator, creating a dynamic dialogue about translation as both an act of literary craftsmanship and cultural bridge-building.

🤝 Our sincere thanks go to Madison Street Books for hosting the event, Ali Kinsella for moderating such a thoughtful and engaging discussion, and ROCO Chicago, the Romanian Community Center, our wonderful partner, represented by Oana Dobrean-Urzică.

📍 Next Stop: Washington, D.C. — Tomorrow, June 3

📖 Join us at Lost City Books for a special conversation with Tatiana Țîbuleac and Monica Cure, moderated by Ena Selimović, celebrating the English-language publication of "The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes".

🕖 Wednesday, June 3, 2026 | 7:00 PM
📍 Lost City Books (2467 18th Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20009)

🎟️ RSVP: https://lostcitybookstore.com/event/2026-06-03/summer-my-mother-had-green-eyes

📚 Books will be available for purchase and signing following the event.

Tonight at ROCO Chicago ✨

Join us for Immigrants Who Write and Writers Who Immigrate, a special conversation with writers Tatiana Țîbuleac and Monica Cure about migration, writing, language, and the stories we tell when our personal journeys don’t follow a predictable pattern.

Moving to a new country means a new language, being uprooted, and learning to navigate unfamiliar systems. How does that influence the stories we carry — and the ones we choose to write?

Organized by ROCO Chicago, Community of Moldovans in Chicago, and the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York.

The conversation will continue with the audience during a meet-and-greet session, where all are welcome.

📍 ROCO Chicago
5406 N Kedzie Ave, Chicago, IL 60625
🗓 Tonight, Tuesday, June 2
🕖 7:00 PM
🌐 In English and Romanian

Copies of The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes, written by Tatiana Țîbuleac and translated by Monica Cure, will be available for purchase and signing.

Seats are limited — please RSVP today and join us for this meaningful literary evening.
RSVP here: https://www.rocochicago.org/tibuleac_roco_dialog

📚 Tatiana Țîbuleac Captivates a Sold-Out Audience at the Bay Area Book Festival

✨ Yesterday, at the Bay Area Book Festival, Tatiana Țîbuleac took part in the outstanding panel “Dark Nights of the Soul: Mental Health in Translation,” moderated by the acclaimed author Rita Bullwinkel, alongside translator Jeremy Tiang.

🎙️ The conversation explored literature’s capacity to navigate grief, memory, psychological fragility, redemption, and the profound complexities of human relationships. Through a rich and thoughtful dialogue, Tatiana spoke about “The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes”, the novel that has captivated readers around the world and is now reaching English-language audiences through Monica Cure’s remarkable translation, published by Deep Vellum.

🎟️ The event was completely sold out, drawing an enthusiastic audience that filled the venue to capacity. The interest in Tatiana’s work exceeded all expectations: despite the books available on site, demand was so high that many readers patiently waited in line hoping to secure a copy and receive a signed autograph. The long queue that followed the discussion was a powerful testament to the impact her writing is already having on American readers.

🤝 Our heartfelt thanks go to Camelia Skikos Fashion and Mihaela Frank, who, together with Florentina Mocanu and Cosmin Gheorghe, co-organized the San Francisco event in partnership with the Romanian Cultural Institute New York, Deep Vellum Publishing, and the Bay Area Book Festival. Their dedication, professionalism, and commitment to bringing Romanian literature to international audiences made this memorable evening possible.

📍 Next stop: Chicago — tonight, June 1

📖 Join Tatiana Țîbuleac and Monica Cure at Madison Street Books for an evening of conversation about "The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes", moderated by Ali Kinsella.

🕖 June 1, 2026 | 7:00 PM
📍 Madison Street Books, Chicago
🔗 RSVP: https://madstreetbooks.com/events/5534920260601

✨ Last Thursday, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting opened at the Romanian Cultural Institute New York with an evening that transformed the gallery into an immersive landscape of memory, absence, and shifting identities. Inspired by Milan Kundera’s iconic novel, the exhibition unfolds through fragments, gestures, and layered narratives that invite visitors to question how personal and collective histories are constructed, remembered, and erased. Bringing together Romanian, American, and Mexican artistic voices, the exhibition quickly became a vibrant point of connection within New York’s contemporary art scene.

🎨 Curated by Charles Moore, the exhibition features works by Salvador Jiménez-Flores, Carlos Genova, Dumitru Gorzo, Nicholas Guzman, Erika Harrsch, Aurora Király, Hortensia Mi Kafchin, Vlad Nancă, Șerban Savu, and Mihai Zgondoiu. Across painting, installation, photography, sculpture, and mixed media, the artists explore migration, displacement, intimacy, political memory, and the fragile architecture of belonging. The dialogue created between these distinct practices offers a compelling reflection on the cultural intersections shaping contemporary life today.

🖼️ We were honored to welcome the curator and artists present for the opening reception. Throughout the evening, the gallery became a space of conversation and discovery, where visitors moved between moments of irony, vulnerability, tension, and humor — echoing the emotional complexity at the heart of the exhibition itself.

🌍 At a moment when conversations around identity, borders, archives, and cultural memory are becoming increasingly urgent, "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" contributes an important international perspective to the ongoing dialogue within New York’s contemporary art ecosystem. The exhibition highlights the power of artistic exchange to create new ways of seeing, remembering, and relating across geographies and generations.

🤍 Thank you to everyone who joined us for this unforgettable opening night and helped make the evening so special.

📍 "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" can be visited at the Romanian Cultural Institute New York – Brâncuși Gallery, located at 200 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016, through June 19, 2026.

🕰️ Exhibition program: The exhibition can be visited from Monday to Friday, between 9 AM – 6 PM.

📸 Discover more photos from the opening on our social media channels and read more on the official RCI New York blog: https://www.rciusa.info/post/the-book-of-laughter-and-forgetting