Tatiana Țîbuleac is an award-winning Moldovan-Romanian author whose novels have been translated into 17 languages. A former journalist and UNICEF staffer, she now lives in Paris. Her latest book, The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes, was translated from Romanian by Monica Cure, a Romanian-American writer, translator, and two-time Fulbright recipient and winner of the 2023 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
This novel, which will be published by Deep Vellum on January 13, 2026, traces Aleksy’s return to the pivotal summer he spent with his mother in rural France, when her revelation of a terminal illness forced them to confront old grief and unspoken tensions. Fourteen years later, through memory and therapy, he revisits those months of fragile reconciliation. Intimate and tender, it explores family, loss, and the difficult work of forgiveness.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover, featuring a painting by Cecilia Omara and design by Jen Blair, along with a Q&A with Țîbuleac and Cure about its creation.
While writing (and translating) the book, did you have any ideas for what you wanted the cover to look like?
Țîbuleac: When I wrote the book, I didn’t even think it would be a book. Even more so, I didn’t think about a cover for it. I remember constantly struggling with images that appeared out of nowhere and that I somehow felt compelled to make room for in my writing. Maybe that’s why my character became a painter. When the first cover, the Romanian one, appeared, I thought that the colors and shapes were from another world, not the one I wrote about. Then after another ten translations, I understood that the book simply has its way, that people read it differently, feel it differently, and I started to wait for them with curiosity, like children wait for new clothes.
Cure: As I translated the book, I got a very clear sense of atmosphere, which brought with it the feeling of colors, haze, and blurry outlines. A kind of lucid fever-dream. I imagined the lucidity as blue and green (the green eyes in the title) and the fever-dream as orange, or in general bright colors. I wanted the cover to have a contemporary feel, but in an abstract or surreal style. Anything overly representational or realist would have felt wrong to me.
Can you explain what the design process was like once you started working with your publishing team?
Țîbuleac: For many years I postponed the English version. It is the language I speak at home with my children, with my husband, and they have not yet read the book. I accepted the translation with a slight fear. Maybe it was better for it to remain a foreign story in our house? I feel somehow threatened by the English language. I feel as if my anonymity has somehow been discovered and now everyone around me, all my friends from other countries, who knew me as someone else, will be able to know what is in my heart. I worked very well with the translator Monica Cure, to whom I thank for her care and finesse. I was also impressed by the enthusiasm of the entire editorial team, the joy with which they seem to be working on the edition. I know it is not an easy book, I know they will say it is their job, but I am extremely grateful to them.
Cure: I loved that Deep Vellum asked for input from the beginning of the process with some key questions, what I’d like or definitely not like for this book. The team also asked for examples and that was easy to provide since The Summer Mother Had Green Eyes had already been published in French, German, Norwegian, Polish, (Brazilian) Portuguese, and Spanish translations, as well as the original Romanian. I liked about half of the covers and disliked half so there was some range.
Part of the design process was an incredible surprise. I flew to LA for the AWP conference this year and it was really fun to meet some of the Deep Vellum team there. They put on a Happy Hour and out of the blue introduced me to Cecilia O’Mara, the artist they had commissioned to create original artwork for the cover. I was in happy shock. Cecilia was lovely (a Midwest transplant to LA as I had been once) and we immediately connected on Instagram. I could already tell her style was an excellent match for this book. I had no doubt that the outcome would be amazing but it was so hard to wait for it!
What was it like seeing your finalized cover for the first time?
Țîbuleac: I loved it! It’s actually the first cover that focused on Aleksy, not the mother. And he’s just like he was born in my head, so I know I will be very happy to hold it in my hands.
Cure: The wait was worth it. Cecilia’s work was her own translation of my translation of Tatiana’s novel, and it gave me so much pleasure to see how we aligned in feeling as well experience her unique vision and art. I was glad that Tatiana felt the same way about it. For me the finalized cover was instantly striking and exactly what I had hoped for.
How does the cover work to convey what the contents of the story are?
Țîbuleac: It’s perfect.
Cure: The representational aspect of the image is allusive and powerful. I immediately saw a boy lying down on the beach with the water coming up to his face, a synecdoche for summer and the time he spent with his mother by the ocean. But it could be read many ways and, for me, the very fluidity of meaning points to how the summer described in the novel affected and colored the rest of his life. The “sand” is a part of him but so is the vivid “water.”
The mood of the painting captures the overall mood of the novel, with its paradoxically heavy-light feel. That’s especially due to the strong contrasts in the color palette, the combination of browns and dark green with the luminous blues and white, but also the composition. All the open space above the figure’s head becomes weighed down with the horizontal lines of the author, title, and translator. Also, the brush strokes are minimal but they create thick lines and there’s a violence to them especially on the figure’s face and neck.
The fact that the novel’s main character and narrator becomes an artist, and his paintings are referred in the book, makes this painterly, original artwork an especially perfect choice for the cover.