Ana Blandiana, Gimnastica de seară

„Gimnastica de seară” [Evening Gymnastics] is a fantastic prose whose particularities converge towards the reconfiguration of reality as a space of a retributive epiphany veiled by the ritual exercise of the careful imitation of human behaviour. Through this exercise, the angel of retribution, sent on a mission of analysing Good and Evil in their concrete, profoundly human dimension, aspires to become like humans. Seen through the divine envoy’s (increasingly) empathic and tolerant eyes, humans are seen as prisoners of a condition which is anything butfavourable. Semantically reframed as an initiatory exercise voluptuously practised, this enables the angel to rediscover himself as an admirer and experiencer of the human.