Books May 2022
Romanian regrets
A review of Children of the Night: The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania by Paul Kenyon.
Fancying himself as “an adventurer-correspondent of the old school,” Paul Kenyon in 1994 accepted an assignment from the bbc to go to Romania to investigate a shameful trade in babies, current practice there at the time. The assignment took an unexpected turn. He acquired a Romanian wife and in-laws who could tell him that the trade in babies was not the worst of it. Romania seems not to live up to its potential, something Kenyon has been thinking about for the best part of thirty years. All the countries of Europe have Hitler and Stalin in their historical memory, and perhaps the shame of what was done in the name of the two dictators will always be there. Children of the Night sees Romania as a country whose rulers have all been bad characters.
Even by the standards of the Middle Ages, Vlad
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