ARNE invites you for a book launch, readings and talk:

Those Who Buy Stars by Anca Mizumschi

Friday, June 14,2024,

6 pm

Auburndale Community Library

375 Auburn St, Newton, MA 02466

Anca Mizumschi is a Romanian author who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Writer and psychologist

Anca Mizumschi, one of the most poignant voices of Romanian diaspora, talks about

immigration as trauma and personal reinvention and the artistic opportunities of a life between

cultures, languages, and geographies.

Her works include: East (poems, 1993), Letter of Discharge (poems, 1995), Paper

Guillotine (poems, 2008), Anca of Noah’s Ark (poems, 2009), Beyond (poems, 2010), In the

Softness of the Sky (poems, 2012); Far from Hemingway (short stories, 1989); My Suspended

Land (essays, 2018), and Those Who Buy Stars (novel, 2022). The author's poems have been

featured in two personal anthologies, Madugrada – Songs of Love and Fury (2013)

and Metropolitana (2018), as well as in numerous Romanian and international group

anthologies: Strong. Romanian-Polish Anthology (1997), 27 Romanian Poets (Stockholm,

2011), Mujer en la aduana – 10 poetas rumanas contemporáneas (Madrid, 2022). She has

received several awards for poetry. Her poems are translated into Swedish, English, Spanish,

French, Italian, Hungarian, Albanese, Czech, and Chinese. As a psychologist and social activist,

Anca Mizumsky has published a long series of articles and essays, her main areas of interest

covering the concepts of dignity as a social construct, collective trauma, expressive art therapy,

and therapeutic writing.

Those Who Buy Stars

A story set in the 16th century across three continents. Based on the legend that meteorite

fragments, known as stones fallen from the sky, are thought to bring immortality to those who

possess them. The search for meteorite fragments takes us from Constantinople's Great Bazaar to

the other end of the Silk Road in China, as well as Malaysian islands brimming with unique spices,

and from the heights of a Tibetan monastery in Lassa to Genoa's fortifications. A veritable cavalcade

of sensations that captivate readers, the book leaves a compelling message: we seek shooting star

fragments to achieve immortality and try to outlast our passage in this world by building palaces,

cathedrals, minarets, and walls; and yet, the true meaning of life is here and now, moment by

moment, seemingly fragile but powerful due to our common, universal, human core that unites us all.