18/07/2025
Just after Christmas 1989, driven by curiosity and the sudden opening of Eastern Europe’s borders, William Blacker left Berlin and drove into rural Romania, discovering a world “frozen in time.” He returned a year later to walk among the remote villages of Transylvania, and by the mid-1990s, made his home there—seeking refuge from the harsher edges of modern life.
For years, Blacker embraced a bucolic existence shaped by the rhythms of the seasons. He ploughed fields with horses, scythed hay meadows, and hauled firewood by sled in the snowbound winters. Living among traditional peasant and Roma communities, he witnessed—and participated in—a way of life unchanged for centuries. He fell in love with a woman named Marishka, and what followed included knife fights, black magic, stolen livestock, and village disputes over grazing land.
But even in Breb, change crept in. Tarred roads brought speeding cars and tragedy. Television introduced a new consumer culture. Young women swapped smocks and bonnets for jeans and lipstick. The old world was vanishing.
Along the Enchanted Way is a lyrical, at times haunting, account of a disappearing Romania—a landscape and culture on the edge of transformation.
“A rare and deeply moving account of a fast-disappearing way of life and culture in Transylvania.” – King Charles III
“Wonderful… A wild and captivating story.” – Patrick Leigh Fermor
Have you read this book? We’d love to hear your thoughts—or your own Romanian-themed recommendations.
Recommended by:
DOR – Romanian Diaspora
Rezistența din diaspora
