Based on a translation by Gabriella Koszta, the novel was adapted for the stage by Tamara Török and Judit Csoma.

“I’m a Communist Old Hag!” is Dan Lungu’s first novel in Hungarian, set in the 1990s. It tells the story of a retired metalworker, Emilia Apostoae, with a lot of humour and (self-)irony. The leitmotif of the story is the popular stereotype: “it was better under the previous regime”.

“A few days ago, when Țucu was at home, I asked him if he knew that there would be elections on Sunday. He said he knew, the news had spread to the villages because Bolohan supporters were handing out free beer from a truck in the fields. And he took one too. And the liberals were handing out ballpoint pens. I told him not to bring that ballpoint pen into this apartment. He reassured me that he’d already lost it. And whether he voted for the pen or the beer, one of them was given in vain. And besides, whichever one wins, he’s going to steal anyway.”

Dan Lungu is a Romanian writer, sociologist and political scientist. He was born in 1969 in Botosani, Moldavia, and currently lives in Iasi. He is the most popular, best known and most translated contemporary Romanian writer. His novel “I am a Communist Old Hag!” has been published in more than 10 languages. His other novel in Hungarian is “How to Forget a Woman.”