Sun Alley

Sal, the protagonist of Sun Alley, is an exceptionally intelligent twelve-year-old boy, experiencing his first love. One summer afternoon, on his way to see his girlfriend Emi, he is caught in a rain shower and shelters in the hallway of a block of flats. Led by a strong odour, he goes down into the basement, where he comes upon the corpse of a young and very beautiful woman. Little by little, Sal will attempt to discover the mystery of this body and, at the same time, will pursue in his amorous relationship with Emi; a strange liaison which unfolds in parallel with the adulterous affair of an adult couple whose path Sal repeatedly crosses.

As his love story with Emi evolves, Sal tries his best to hide it, not only from the cynical eyes of his friends in the neighbourhood, but also from his parents - whose intervention might well shatter his bliss - thereby developing a veritably adulterous mindset that can also be observed in the adult couple. The connections between adults and the two children, on the one hand, and the dead body discovered by Sal on the other, are far deeper and more complicated than they may at first seem. Sun Alley is a novel about the roots of adultery and the destiny of an exceptional young boy who, thanks to his gifts, has the power to see his own future in his mind’s eye.

Cecilia Stefanescu is the author of Love Sick, which has been made into a film, directed by Tudor Giurgiu. In 2005, alongside 11 other Romanian writers, she took part in the annual Les Belles Étrangères event, organized by the Centre National du Livre and the French Ministry of Culture, which was dedicated to Romania that year. She has given public readings in France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and Poland; in 2007, she was the recipient of a writer’s residency offered by the City Hall of Paris. She has also been published in the group anthology Windows 98 and, along with other Romanian authors, contributed to the experimental book Tescani 40238. She contributes monthly editorials to the Romanian-language edition of Elle magazine and writes for the weekly Romanian-language edition of Le Monde Diplomatique.