Cartarescu, Mircea 1956–

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Cartarescu, Mircea 1956–

PERSONAL: Born June 1, 1956, in Bucharest, Romania. Education: University of Bucharest, Ph.D., 1980.

ADDRESSES: Office—Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, 68 Edgar Quinet St., Sector 1, Bucharest, Romania.

CAREER: School teacher in Bucharest, Romania, 1980–89; University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania, lecturer and chairman of Romanian literature history, 1991–. Writer in residence, Romanian Writers Union, 1991–. Visiting professor, University of Amsterdam, 1994–95. Participant in conferences, symposia, and seminars in America and Europe.

MEMBER: PEN (Romania), Romanian Writers Union, ASPRO.

AWARDS, HONORS: Romanian Writers Union prize, 1980, for Faruri, vitrine, fotografii; Romanian Academy prize, 1990, for Visul; Romanian Writers Union prize, 1990, for Levantul; "Flacara," "Ateneu," and "Cuvântul" prizes, 1990, 1996, and 1997; Union Latine prize (France), 1992; Romanian Writers Union prize, 1994, for Travesti; Romanian Writers Union, Republic of Moldova prize, 1994; ASPRO prize, 1994, for Travesti, and 1996, for Orbitor.

WRITINGS:

Faruri, vitrine, fotografii (title means "Headlights, Shop Windows, Photographs), Cartea Româneasca Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 1980.

(Contributor) Aer cu diamante (title means "Air and Diamonds"), Litera Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 1982.

Poeme de amor (title means "Love Poems"), 1983.

(Contributor) Desant 83 (title means "Commando '83), Cartea Româneasca Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 1983.

Totul (title means "Everything"), 1985.

Visul, Cartea Româneasca Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 1989, translation by Andrei Co-drescu published as Nostalgia: A Novel, New Directions (New York, NY), 2005.

Levantul (title means "Levant"), Cartea Româneasca Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 1990.

Visul chimeric (title means "The Chimerical Dream"), Litera Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 1992.

Travesti (title means "Travesty"), Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 1994.

Dragostea (title means "Love"), Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 1994.

(Contributor) Antologia poeziei generaţiei '80 (title means "The Anthology of Generation '80 in Poetry"), Vlasie Publishing House (Piteşti, Romania), 1995.

Orbitor (title means "Dazzling"), Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 1996.

Dublu CD: Antologie de poezie (title means "Double CD: Poetry Anthology") Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 1998.

Postmodernismul romanesc (title means "The Romanian Post-Modernism"), Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 1999.

(Contributor) Generatia '80 în proza scurta, (title means "Generation '80 in Short Stories"), Paralele 45 Publishing House (Piteşti, Romania), 1999.

Jurnal (title means "Journal"), Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 2001.

Enciclopedia zmeilor, illustrated by Tudor Banus, Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania) 2002.

Pururi tinar, infasurat in pixeli: din periodice, Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 2003.

Plurivers, Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 2003.

De ce iubim femeile, Humanitas Publishing House (Bucharest, Romania), 2004.

Contributor of poems and essays to periodicals. Work has been translated into French, Spanish, and German.

SIDELIGHTS: A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called Mircea Cartarescu "Romania's leading poet." Although not widely translated in English, Cartarescu is an important voice in Romanian letters, not only for his poetry, but also for his stories, novels, and essays. His novels in particular employ postmodern elements in the tradition of Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The same Publishers Weekly critic, considering Cartarescu's Nostalgia: A Novel, noted that the author's "prose shines." A Kirkus Reviews correspondent wrote that "a surrealist landscape stands revealed" in Nostalgia, concluding that Cartarescu's "phantasmagorical world is similar to Dali's dreamscapes."