Michael Burleigh
Night of the Vampires
Michael of Romania: The King and the Country
By Ivor Porter
Sutton Publishing 328pp £20 order from our bookshop
Ivor Porter, a former SOE agent who was sent to Romania in 1943 to encourage anti-German resistance, and who then experienced – once Romania had changed sides – the nightmare of the Communist coup, is exceptionally well qualified to tell this gripping story of King Michael’s dedication to his ill-starred country. Since the author has such an intimate grasp of the high politics of modern Romania, perhaps a slightly wider focus is in order for the events he describes so well in a book that puts the case for monarchy.
Michael (or Mihai) of Romania was born in 1921 to Crown Prince Carol and Princess Helen of Greece. Emerging from the Great War as one of the victors, Romania had doubled in size and acquired substantial ethnic minorities outside the Old Kingdom or ‘Regat’. Following the demise of the pro-German
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'As it starts to infect your dreams, you realise that "Portal 2" is really an allegory of the imaginative leap: the way in which we traverse the space between distant concepts, via the secret conduits we place within them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/portal-agony
'Any story about Eden has to be a story about the Fall; unchanging serenity does not make a narrative.'
@suzifeay reviews Jim Crace's 'eden'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/trouble-in-paradise
The first holiday camps had an 'ethos of muscular health as a marker of social respectability, and were alcohol-free. How different from our modern Costa Brava – not to mention the innumerable other coasts around the world now changed forever'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/from-mont-blanc-to-magaluf