The Security Guard at Night

The work of a Roma poet (one of the first to win a significant award in Romania) these poems seem to arise from a place pitched deep within and then to traverse social strata, mapping statuses. They note the many affronts to the fullness of being and glory in every trace of found beauty. This collection might be seen as a deconstruction, in the purest sense, of dehumanization, one that locates the life of the spirit and, despite all, bends toward radiance. 

Emil-Iulian Sude is one of the first award-winning poets of Roma ethnicity in Romania. He has published five collections of poems, starting with Scărarul (The Ladder Maker, Grinta, 2014), which was translated into Hebrew by Menachem M. Falek and published in Israel (Zur-Ot, 2014). Paznic de noapte (The Security Guard at Night) was originally published by Casa Cărţilor in 2023 with Diana Manole as book editor. It won the “Ion Zubașcu” prize at the 2023 Sighet International Poetry Festival. In 2024, it was also published in France, under the title, Veilleur de nuit, by Éditions Maïa, translated by Gabrielle Sava. Sude’s poetry has earned him twenty awards and distinctions, including first place in the “Bronislawa Wajs” International Contest of Literary Creation and Translation, celebrating the centenary of the Roma (1919–2019). He also placed fourth in the 2018 manuscript competition, organized by the Centrul Național de Cultură a Romilor – Romano Kehr (National Centre for Roma Culture—Romano Kehr) in collaboration with the Romanian government.  Sude was also awarded a Diploma of Excellence at the 2018 Roma Excellence Gala for his “remarkable contribution to the development and promotion of Roma culture and identity.” The Security Guard at Night is his first book in English.

Writer, translator, researcher, and professor, Diana Manole was born in Bucharest and emigrated to Canada in 2000. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and has been teaching at universities across Ontario for almost twenty years, including courses in Creative Writing. In Romania, she has received fourteen literary awards and published nine collections of poetry and plays. Since immigrating, her poetry has appeared in English and/or in translation in literary magazines across fourteen countries and has been recognized with two Canadian literary prizes and a Pushcart prize nomination. Manole is also a passionate translator who co-won second prize in the 2018 John Dryden Translation Competition and the 2023 Lunch Ticket Issue 24 Gabo Prize for her translations of poems by Emil-Iulian Sude. Manole co-translated into English three poetry collections and over half of a poetry anthology. Independently, she translated two Roma plays from Romania, which were included in the Roma Heroes anthologies (Independent Theater Hungary, 2019 and 2021) and over one hundred Romanian poems published in the U.S., the U.K., Taiwan, and Canada. Additionally, she had numerous translations of Canadian, British, and Chinese poetry featured in the most important Romanian literary magazines.