Norman Manea

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Norman Manea

Norman Manea (born July 19, 1936) is a Jewish Romanian writer and author of short fiction, novels, and essays about the Holocaust, daily life in a communist state, and exile. He lives in the United States, where he is the Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer in residence at Bard College.

Manea's most acclaimed book, The Hooligan’s Return (2003), is an original novelistic memoir, encompassing a period of almost 80 years, from the pre-war period, through the Second World War, the communist and post-communist years to the present.

Manea has been known and praised as an international important writer since early 1990s, and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages.^[1] He has received more than 20 awards and honors.

Early years

Born in the Burdujeni neighborhood of Suceava (Bukovina, Romania), Manea was deported as a child, in 1941, by the Romanian fascist authorities, allied with Nazi Germany, to the concentration camp of Transnistria in the Ukraine with his family and the entire Jewish population of the region. He returned to Romania in 1945 with the surviving members of his family and graduated with high honors from the high school (liceu) Stefan cel Mare (Stephan the Great) in his home town, Suceava. He studied engineering at the Construction Institute in Bucharest and graduated with master’s degree in hydro-technique in 1959, working afterwards in planning, fieldwork and research. He has devoted himself to writing since 1974.

Literary career

Manea’s literary debut took place in Povestea Vorbii (The Tale of Word, 1966), an avant-garde and influential magazine that appeared in the early years of cultural liberalization in communist Romania and was suppressed after six issues. Until he was forced into exile (1986) he published ten volumes of short fiction essays and novels. His work was an irritant to the authorities because of the implied and overt social-political criticism and he faced a lot of trouble with the censors and the official press. At the same time that sustained efforts were made by the cultural authorities to suppress his work, it had the support and praise of the country’s most important literary critics.

After the collapse of the Ceaușescu dictatorship, several of his books started to be published in Romania. The publication in the Romanian democratic press of his essays Happy Guilt, appeared in the United States (The New Republic, August 1991). His essay on Mircea Eliade and his former fascist connection provoked a scandal in the Romanian press and hysteria in the nationalistic newspapers.^{[citation needed]} Echoes of this scandal can be still be found in some articles of the current Romanian cultural press.

Meantime, in the United States and in European countries, Manea’s writing was received with great acclaim. Over the past two decades he has been proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature by literary and academic personalities and institutions in the United States, Sweden, Romania, Italy and France. Important contemporary writers expressed admiration of the author’s literary work and his moral stand before and after the collapse of communism: the Nobel laureates Heinrich Böll, Günther Grass, Octavio Paz, Orhan Pamuk, as well as Philip Roth, Claudio Magris, Antonio Tabucchi, E. M. Cioran, Antonio Munoz Molina, Cynthia Ozick, Louis Begley and others.

Honors

• 1979 - Literary Prize of the Bucharest Writers’ Association (Romania)
• 1984 – Literary Prize of the Romanian Writer’s Union (withdrawn by the Communist authorities)
• 1987 – DAAD Berliner Künstler Programm Grant (Germany)
• 1988 – Fulbright Scholarship, Catholic University, Washington, DC (USA)
• 1989-1992 – International Academy for Scholarship and the Arts Fellowship, Bard College (USA)
• 1992 – Guggenheim Fellowship (USA)
• 1992 – MacArthur Fellows Award (USA)
• 1993 – The National Jewish Book Award (USA)
• 1996 – The Marie Syrkin Jerusalem Fellowship in Letters (Israel)
• 1997 – The Bukovina Literary Prize (Romania)
• 2002 – The International Nonino Prize (Italy)
• 2004, 2005 – American Academy Fellowship in Berlin (Germany)
• 2004 – The Napoli Literary Prize for foreign novel (Italy)
• 2005 - Holtzbrinck Prize of the American Academy in Berlin (Germany)
• 2005 – Best foreign book in Spain (El Regreso del Huligan / The Hooligan’s Return)
• 2006 – Lux Mundi, the Cultural Award of Radio Romania Cultural (Romania)
• 2006 – Elected jury member of the International Nonino Prize (Italy)
• 2006 – Finalist, Prix Femina (France)
• 2006 – Prix Médicis Étranger (France)
• 2006 – The Cultural Prize of Romanian International Television (Romania)
• 2006 – Elected member of the Berlin Academy of Art (Germany)
• 2007 – Finalist, Latinity Prize of the Association of Latin Countries
• 2007 – Awarded the Order of Cultural Merit (in rank of Commander) by the President of Romania (Romania)
• 2008 – Honorary degree in literature, University of Bucharest (Romania)
• 2008 – Honorary degree in literature, Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania)
• 2009 – The Literary Award of the Fondation du Judaisme Français (France)
• 2009 – Finalist, Literary Prize of Fundación Príncipe de Asturias (Spain)
• 2009 – The Observator Cultural Lifetime Award Opera Omnia (Romania)
• 2009 - Legion of Honour (France)
• 2011 - Nelly Sachs Prize (Germany)

Works

• 1969 Noaptea pe latura lunga (Night on the Long Side) (short fiction)
• 1970 Captivi (Captives) (novel)
• 1974 Primele porti (First Gates) (short fiction)
• 1977 Cartea Fiului (Book of the Son) (novel)
• 1979 Anii de ucenicie ai lui August Prostul (The Apprenticeship Years of Augustus the Fool) (documentary novel)
• 1981 Octombrie, ora opt (October, eight o’clock) (short fiction)
• 1984 Pe Contur (On the Edge) (essays)
• 1986 Plicul negru (The Black Envelope) (novel)
• 1997 Despre Clovni: Dictatorul si Artistul (On Clowns: The Dictator and the Artist) (essays)
• 1999 Fericirea obligatorie (Compulsory Happiness) (novellas)
• 1999 Casa melcului (The Snail’s House) (interviews)
• 2003 Intoarcerea huliganului (The Hooligan’s Return) (novelistic memoir)
• 2004 Plicuri si portrete (Envelopes and Portraits) (essays)
• 2006 Textul nomad (The Nomad Text) (interviews)
• 2008 Vorbind pietrei (Talking to a Stone)
• 2008 Inaintea despartirii (Before Parting) (conversation with Saul Bellow)
• 2009 Vizuina (The Lair) (novel)
• 2010 Laptele negru (The black milk) (essays and interviews)
• 2010 Curierul de Est. Dialog cu Edward Canterian

References

External links

• Contemporary Romanian Writers
• Manea's editorial commentaries for Project Syndicate