Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu
Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Critical Theory at the University of Western Ontario

 

Don Global suit pe cal / The Coming of Don Global:

About the authors

This is the three-headed, six-handed author of this book:

Ilinka (Ilinka-Beatrice Mihăilescu) is nine years old and a ballerina.  She can catch and throw a tennis ball with the right hand (with the left, too, equally well; that would make her ambidextrous, wouldn’t it?) Her slogan is: I don=t (want to) have a slogan.  She wants to become a writer.  And a ballerina.  And the list is open.

Andrei (Andrei-Ian Mihăilescu) is eight-and-fun years old. He is jumping into the third grade, and is a Nintendo black belt.  Andrei’s slogan is: “I am full of my own guts.”  He wants to be a great soccer player (but he does not yet know which one).

Călin (Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu) is a bit older (it took him some time to wait for his kids, Ilinka and Andrei, to be born and to grow-and-tell). He teaches literature to older kids.  His slogan is: “Not to move is to wander.”  He wants to be a kid again.

The three live in Ontario, Canada, where they saw bears only at the zoo and on TV.  They tell stories to each other all the time; usually they give each other three words on which the next story needs to be based, and most of the stories you can read in this book were born of such groups of three words.  But there is no story which started from the words „Ilinka,” „Andrei,” and „Călin.”

From the book’s jacket

 

Probably that since Tudor Arghezi, who was teaming up with his family in the writing of children stories, Romanian literature does not have, until Ilinka, Andrei and Călin Mihăilescu a family-collective author. The Coming of Don Global is a collection of postmodern fairytales written by three authors, with the pater familias being the master of ceremonies being. And the master’s master is, undoubtedly, the inventor of Alice’s Wonderland... The stories created by the three are comical, absurd, pressingly contemporary (Don Global is, certainly, the mythical hero of globalization), filled with tricks and gimmicks of the twenty-first century, such as vacuum cleanesr, commercials, black holes and Pepsi bottles... The readers between 10 and 110 years-old are up for a meeting with the heroes of the new fairytales, with their trials, cruelties and tenderness. One thing is certain: the old heroes now belong in a museum; childhood has changed its repertory.

Al. Ioanide, “Magister ludi,” România literară, May, 2003