Presentation of the book Jurnalul celor 66. Noaptea în care am ars (Diary of 66t The Night I Burned  Alive– Humanitas, 2022) by Alexandra Furnea in the presence of the author.

Presentation of the English-language edition by the American publisher Histria (October, 2024).

Attending alongside the author are: Kurt Brackob (publisher), Livia Stoia (literary agent).

Moderation: Georg Aescht

“Diary of 66: The Night I Burned Alive” is Alexandra Furnea’s haunting memoir about the Colectiv club fire, which occurred on October 30th, 2015 in Bucharest, Romania, and is regarded as the country’s biggest contemporary tragedy. It’s an intimate account of the harrowing suffering the author endured because of the widespread corruption that caused the fire, led authorities to make skewed decisions regarding the fate of the victims, and engendered the inhumane conditions in the hospitals. “The Diary of 66” is a cautionary endeavor that warns, through what critics called its “lyrical and compelling prose”, about the devastating effects of systemic corruption, encouraging the reader to take a stance against it.

ALEXANDRA FURNEA is a writer, book editor, journalist, and social activist. She graduated from the “Petru Maior” University in Târgu-Mureș, earning a bachelor’s degree in Romanian and English Philology. She also holds a master’s degree in American Studies, from the University of Bucharest. Between 2011 and 2020, she was the coordinating editor of Maximum Rock Magazine, one of Romania’s most highly regarded rock music webzines. Through her articles, she promoted both the local underground scene, as well as rock and metal in general. She is a survivor of Romania’s worst contemporary tragedy: the Colectiv club fire, which occurred on October 30th, 2015. In 2022, she published the original Romanian edition of her memoir, “Jurnalul lui 66: Noaptea în care am ars” (“Diary of 66: The Night I Burned Alive”), at Humanitas. The book quickly became a best-seller at the 2022 “Gaudeamus” Book Fair and earned the praise of prominent cultural figures like philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu and writers Radu Paraschivescu and Marius Chivu. In 2023, it won the prestigious „Monica Lovinescu” Prize "for the harrowing human experience conveyed and for the diagnosis of contemporary Romanian society," according to the event's jury. The year 2024 marks the expansion of the book’s literary fate beyond Romania’s borders with the release of the English edition, translated by the author herself and published by Histria in the USA, and the German edition, translated by Peter Groth, for Dittrich Verlag in Germany. „Jurnalul lui 66” is considered a revelation in the Romanian memoir genre and has been compared by literary critics to the works of Evgenia Ginzburg, Primo Levi, as well as Max Blecher and Sorana Gurian.