On 18 th December 2025, two days after the official 250 th anniversary of Jane Austen, we gathered in the English Department to award the winners of The Jane Austen Competition. The jury, consisting of three professors of English at the Faculty of Letters (Teodora Drișcu, assistant lecturer, Florina Năstase, lecturer and Estera Federciuc, adjunct lecturer), has selected the letters written by the following students:
- 🥇First Place Award: Ana-Ivona Lungu (1 st year, Ro-En)
- 🥈Second Place Award: Serena Niță (3 rd year, En-Sp)
- 🥉Third Place Award: Bianca-Alice Tănase (2 nd year, Ro-En)
Warmest congratulations to our talented winners! We invite you to delight in their inspiring letters posted below. Many thanks to our collaborator, Corint Publishers, for all the help in organising this activity and for the beautiful works of English Literature bestowed as awards! We would also like to thank all our participants who have expressed their affectionate thoughts and gratitude for our beloved writer and are truly glad to have come together in celebration of this significant event.
In the end, let us remember, along with Caroline Bingley (but with the seriousness of Elizabeth Bennet), that “there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!”
Happy birthday, dear Jane!
Please read below the three winning letters!
🥇First Place Award: Ana-Ivona Lungu (1 st year, Ro-En)
Dearest Miss Austen,
I write to you across time and space, not merely — though undeniably — as an admirer of yours, but also as a curious reader still challenged by your wit. This year marks the 250th anniversary of your birth, and while the occasion is a truly special one, I am compelled to address you for a myriad of other literary and personal reasons. After this necessary preamble — and as it is also the correct and polite order of things — I must now express my birthday greetings. As such, I wish a very “happy birthday” to the author who has shaped my identity in ways not even her genius could perfectly articulate into words, and especially to the woman herself — Jane Austen — whom I have never met, yet have come to know intimately through her marvellous writing. I am well aware that my words might come off as more verbose and less characteristically charming than yours — yet I cannot overstate the impact your work has had on me as an aspiring writer.
Starting from my early adolescence, I found myself growing into a peculiar young woman — something irretrievably different from the mould I was expected to shape myself into. As a natural consequence of refusing to lose myself in the vanity of a world that has evolved little since you left it, I felt alone. In my isolation, I had plenty of time for reading, and, one fortunate day, I was introduced to a heroine of yours: Anne Elliot. I was instantly drawn to that introverted, sensible woman — she was a reflection of me; the first time I felt truly seen. Not only was I mesmerized by the character, but also by the mastery behind the novel itself. Persuasion was the introduction to my lifelong admiration of you.
As time passed, I sought out more and more of your work. I found a new, tiny piece of myself in every page I encountered — only to occasionally lose the entirety of my being in the unique worlds you created. I grew older — then bolder — and I told others about you. You will surely find this information amusing, but some of your admirers, myself included, call ourselves “Janeites”. It is no surprise that there are many others just like me; after all, no one writes more complex heroines than Jane Austen.
It is disheartening how only now — two and a half centuries later — so many of us think of you, when the few readers of your time did not even know your name. And yet it is clear you stand out among your contemporaries: your art could never truly fade from the collective consciousness. I wonder what you would think of the way your legacy has morphed and become almost a living, breathing entity of its own.
Yours affectionately,
An ardent reader
Dear Jane,
Dear Miss Austen,