Sanda Stolojan

Sanda Stolojan, née Henriette Lucia Sanda Zamfirescu (19 February 1919, Bucharest – 2 August 2005, Paris) was a Romanian poet, translator and writer. She was a dissident and prominent figure of the Romanian anticommunist exile.

Life Born and raised in a family of intellectuals and diplomats, she received an elite education in Romania and other European countries. After finishing high school in Paris in 1937, she signed up for studies at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bucharest. In 1943, she married Vlad Stolojan Filipescu and they attempted to leave communist Romania in 1949, but were arrested and sent imprisoned for the crime of preparation for illegal emigration. In following years, both were convicted of further crimes, eventually losing their home to the authorities.

In 1961, Sanda and Vlad Stolojan managed to leave Romania definitively and settled in Paris. She pursued studies at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales and worked as a translator and interpreter of Romanian language for French presidents. She also became active in the circles of Romanian anticommunist dissidents abroad, especially as a collaborator for Radio Free Europe and as President for the Romanian Human Rights League (Ligue pour la défense des droits de l’homme en Roumanie, LDHR). She also developed an intense literary activity as a writer and poet, and also as founder of the magazine Les Cahiers de l'Est.

In the 1990s, after the fall of the Romanian communist regime, she developed a number of political and cultural activities in Romania and became an honorary member of the National Institute for the Memory of the Romanian Exile (later known as the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile).

Selection of Works Stolojan, Sanda (1994), Cu De Gaulle în România. Bucharest: Albatros. Stolojan, Sanda (1999), Au balcon de l'exil roumain à Paris: avec Cioran, Eugène Ionesco, Mircea Eliade, Vintila Horia, Paris, Montréal: l'Harmattan. Stolojan, Sanda (2001), La Roumanie revisitée: Journal 1990-1996, Paris, Montréal, Budapest: l'Harmattan. Stolojan, Sanda (2006), Sub semnul depărtării: Corespondență Constantin Noica – Sanda Stolojan, Bucharest: Humanitas. Stolojan, Sanda (2007), Amurg senin: Jurnal din exilul parizian 1997-2001, Bucharest: Humanitas. Stolojan, Sanda et Stolojan, Vlad (2009) Să nu plecăm toți odată: Amintiri din România anilor 1950, Bucharest: Humanitas.