Cigarettes Until Tomorrow

“Dare[s] to look forward, dreaming with reckless abandon. What results is a sweeping tapestry capturing the everyday textures of life in contemporary Romania, intimately specific yet universal in its scope and themes—providing readers with a collective portrait of life in modern society: the mundane, the barbarous, the joyous.”
—Full Stop

“[The Calico Series], with its eye-catching design and sparkling curation, is one of the best modes of discovery out there: pick one up, regardless of what you think you know about the contents, and you’re bound to discover a whole new slice of the literary world—like, in this edition, Romanian poetry!”
—Literary Hub (Most Anticipated Books of 2024)

“There are poems here I would print, fold, and tuck into every English-speaking pocket…‘Words are also a province,’ as Adela Greceanu reminds us. In the key of Svetlana Boym’s ‘off-modern,’ these poets mobilize reflective nostalgia as a critical gesture that resists the anointment of golden ages. There is no perfect past to return to, and there is no sustainable future apart from what Walter Benjamin called the ‘possible-impossibility’ we dare to imagine. As our planet shudders beneath the ruthless techne of absolute truths and billionaire-driven economics, Romanian poetry grounds its visions in uncertainty, tenderness, the relationship between longing and belonging, and doubt.”
—Alina Stefanescu

“The Calico Series never fails to impress. With this new collection of Romanian poets, Two Lines reminds us of the great privilege of translation, to read and be read and live in beauty and war.”
—Bex Frankeberger, Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)

“This was wonderful! A perfect collection of poems to keep near this fall.”
— Oscar Almonte Espinal, Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books (Philadelphia, PA)

“This anthology features 8 poets, their works translated from Romanian into English and we’re all the richer for it. My personal favorite is Ioan Flora, who I learned has been dead for almost 20 years. How wonderful and terrible to meet someone for the first time only to be speaking with their ghost.”
—Douglass Riggs, Bank Square Books (Mystic, CT)

Praise for the Calico Series

“Unbelievably exciting…These are poems to read and reread, repeating the lines as though they were a secret between yourself and the page.”
—The Paris Review on Home: New Arabic Poems

“This eclectic bilingual anthology from queer Brazilian writers, both living and dead, is as expansive and full of life as the country itself…enticing and poignant.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cuíer: Queer Brazil

“Visible approaches translation as an act that occurs not only between languages but also between media and disciplines…Thoughtfully curated…Past and present come together in a refreshingly collaborative spirit.”
—Brooklyn Rail on Visible

“An absorbing sampler of the literary feast available in Africa’s most widely spoken language, No Edges should leave readers eager to discover more Swahili writers.”
—Shailja Patel, author of Migritude, on No Edges

Additional Materials

• Cigarettes Until Tomorrow review, in Full Stop Magazine
• Three poems by Adela Greceanu and translated by Monica Cure, in The Dial
• Cigarettes Until Tomorrow Reader’s Guide
• Request an Exam or Desk Copy