Neptun 2

Hardly any sleep last night - who knows why, maybe some rhythmic thing, delayed time adjustment - so almost asleep on the bus to Mangalia in the morning. In fact once at the conference centre I sit and doze out the first hour in the lobby then venture in. As ever the loud urgent voices stung on by one or other demon of history (the demons are legion!), simultaneous translations, the hall packed. There is something about the seethe and fury yet courtesy, almost gentleness, of the proceedings that is vaguely magical and unlike any Western equivalent.

After coffee break where I talk chiefly to the Slovenian writer, a young trainee surgeon who later turns out to be very good poet, I have to take my place at the front and speak. A good part of the text has already been published in the Romanian equivalent of the TLS - as a full page no less! I'll put it up here once I am home, not on this iPhone.

All goes swimmingly. Back for lunch then bed. Readings in the evening. More of this, with names, once back.

Now 23:30. Music from the hotel across the road. Like the soundtrack of a 60's socialist realist film.