The story of Editura Nemira, told by Ana Lotts-Nicolau
For most people, Nemira is a logo on the spine of a beloved book or a coveted title in a bookshop. For me, Nemira was always my father's "third child," a constant, noisy, and fascinating presence that lived in our home and ate at our table from the time I was knee-high. To write about a family business means, inevitably, to write about yourself, because the border between the kitchen table and the publishing house desk never truly exists.
My father, Valentin Nicolau, did not just build a publishing house, he built a universe. In the '90s, when everything was being born out of chaos and the ruins of communism, he, together with a few friends, had the vision to bring to Romania the great masters of science fiction and suspense. Books that shaped generations of readers and that flew off the bookshop shelves in the '90s: Dune, Odiseea Spațială, Jocul lui Ender, the war novels of Sven Hassel, and the books of Rodica Ojog-Brașoveanu. Books that raised and inspired a new generation of local writers, and without which the literary landscape of Romania would look different now. I grew up surrounded by writers and editors, with a library constantly fed by the latest releases from the publishing house. Yet, however much I was part of that landscape, part of the same family, I never suspected that fate would throw me so soon into the role of materfamilias, challenging me to take a helm that I saw as his.
I started working at Nemira when I was 12, in the summers, when all my schoolmates went on holiday to the seaside or to their grandparents. I filled in for colleagues who were away on leave, answered the phones, made up parcels and carried packages to the post office. My parents always believed that work is learned from a young age, and I am grateful to them for that lesson. But even so, when it was my turn to apply to university, I did not think I could work in the family business; instead, I wanted to carve out my own path in life.
I went to study Law, only to realize, after four years of work and two bachelor's degrees, that it did not suit me. I passed the entrance exam for Medicine and, in the summer of 2011, while waiting to start a new degree in the autumn, I began my last summer internship at Nemira. My last internship, and the first one I did within the editorial department, the heart of the publishing house. That summer I rediscovered what a publishing house is, what Nemira is, and it was the first time I realized that my place was there, after years of searching.