“This book is the one which is the real Triumph of Love.”–Seamus Heaney
“Bugan’s poetry is subtle, tends towards reticence, yet has an indelible staying power. Crossing the Carpathians is a moving exploration of the costs of survival and the survival of love.” —Jacquelyn Pope on Crossing the Carpathians in Harvard Review.
“To say these poems are beautiful is to risk underselling them. It is the specific nature of their beauty that matters, compounded as it is of dark experience, hope, magic, delight, generosity and love of language. Bugan is such a natural poet that the most apparently straightforward account of life under Ceausescu transcends its grim subject. Her love poems and poems of landscape have a freshness one can only ache for.” –George Szirtes (from back cover)
Carmen Bugan 