Nearly three years after the fall of the Ceausescu regime, Romanian writers enjoy greater creative freedom than before. But a combination of economic hardship and the legacy of a politically oppressive system has seriously affected the publication ofnew literature. The reduction of state subsidies for the Romanian Writers Union, now headed by controversial former dissident poetMircea Dinescu, has led to virtual bankruptcy for all of the Union's publications, many of which, like the weekly Romania Literara, had emerged with secure credentials as publishers of contemporary literature. New independent literary publications have routinely encountered problems with paper supplies, printing costs and distribution — difficulties which have led many to fold during the last 12 months. The country's publishing houses also face difficulties associated with the economic and political changes. Humanitas, a private publisher formed out of the state literary publishing house soon after December 1989, and the main rival to the monopolistic state publishing system, treads a precarious path. One of its senior literary editors admitted in November 1991 that it was impossible to predict the popularity of literary works in the absence of private bookshops and a workable national distribution system. This makes the publication of new or lesser-known authors less likely than ever. The poets published here are all connected with the Romanian Writers Union. Stefan Augustin Doinas is a former dissident writer who was unable, for political reasons, to publish for much of his creative life. Both he andAna Blandiana (see back cover) are founder members of Memoria magazine whose editor, Banu Rădulescu, is profiled on page 35). Memoria has undertaken the delicate task of rediscovering lost or censored writers and documenting the prison experiences of dissidents from Romania's recent past, a difficult task owing to officialsecrecy and mistrust, and one made doubly so by the unofficial threats and physical violence Rădulescu has encountered. The continuing political tensions have influenced writers already marked by a 'culture of censorship', and the poems we publish here reflect the poets' concern with the problematic nature of words in a climate of suspicion and betrayal (compounded, since 1989, by profound uncertainty).Florin Iaru's guide to (former) Eastern European leaders — a pastiche of the folk-tale setting of 'social realism' formerly encouraged in Romanian literature—andMircea Dinescu's oblique poem both point up the absurdity of a situation where what is of real importance is not, nor cannot be, named, and Mariana Marin's Elegy, from an earlier collection, draws on the ambiguous power of language, here used to separate rather than unite the lovers. Stefan Agopian ( see page 40) represents a younger generation of writers exploring new territory in fiction.