Doina Jela: A black dictionary
– Romania
Born in 1951, Doina Jela is a writer, journalist and a translator. She is the founder of the Association of Independent Journalists of Romania and prepares the edition titled A trial of Communism for the Humanitas publishing house. She writes mainly nonfiction dealing with the totalitarian regime in Romania – titles such as Cazul Nichita Dumitru (The Nichita Dumitru Case), Această dragoste care ne leagă (This Love that Binds Us) and Drumul Damascului (The Road to Damascus), where she recorded a unique testimony of a former investigator of Securitate, the Romanian secret police. The film director Lucian Pintilie adapted it as The Afternoon of a Torturer. She published Lexiconul negru. Unelte ale represiunii comuniste (Black Dictionary. Instruments of Communist Repression), an annotated list of 1,700 investigators, judges and prison officers serving the regime. In the foreword, she writes: “People were often subjected to hard ordeals, but that’s why humanity manifests in the most interesting ways.” She translates from French, e.g. the monograph Stalin by Boris Souvarin. She also wrote Villa Margareta, an autobiographical novel.