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Dan Lungu (; born September 15, 1969) is a Romanian novelist, short story writer, poet and dramatist, also known as a literary theorist and sociologist. The recipient of critical acclaim for his short story volume ''Cheta la flegmă'' ("Quest for Phlegm") and his novels ''Raiul găinilor'' ("Chicken Paradise") and ''Sînt o babă comunistă!'' ("I'm a Communist Biddy!"), he is also one of the most successful authors to have emerged in post-1990
Romanian literature Romanian literature () is the entirety of literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language or by any authors native to Romania. Early Romanian literature inc ...
. Lungu's literary universe, which mainly comprises " microsocial" images of life under the
communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...
and during the subsequent transitional period, bridges a form of Neorealism with
Postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
. Often included among a group of authors who signed their first major contracts with
Polirom Polirom or Editura Polirom ("Polirom" Publishing House) is a Romanian publishing house with a tradition of publishing classics of international literature and also various titles in the fields of social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, and ...
publishing house, he is also seen as a distinctive voice from his adoptive provincial city of
Iași Iași ( , , ; also known by other #Etymology and names, alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the Cities in Romania, third largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical ...
. A lecturer at the Faculty of Sociology,
University of Iași The Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (; acronym: UAIC) is a public university located in , Romania. Founded by an 1860 decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza, under whom the former was converted to a university, the University of , as it was named ...
, and former editor in chief of ''
Timpul ''Timpul'' (Romanian for "The Time") is a literary magazine published in Romania. Originally a political newspaper, it was the official platform of the Conservative Party between 1876 and 1914. The publication is still active (2018) and publish ...
'' newspaper, Dan Lungu is also the noted author and co-author of essays and sociological research into everyday life under communist rule, scientific preoccupations which share similarities with his work in fiction. His main interests in the area of historical research include the feminine experience of
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...
rule, the connection between official
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
and the actual lives of
working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
members, and the development of cultural attitudes in relation to communist censorship.


Biography

Born in
Botoșani Botoșani () is the capital city of Botoșani County, in the northern part of Moldavia, Romania. Today, it is best known as the birthplace of many celebrated Romanians, including Mihai Eminescu, Nicolae Iorga and Grigore Antipa. Origin of the ...
city into a
Romanian Orthodox The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; , ), or Romanian Patriarchate, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates in the Eastern Orthodox Church. S ...
family, Ovidiu Șimonca
" 'Să-ți amintești de o femeie, ca s-o uiți' (interview with Dan Lungu)"
in ''
Observator Cultural ''Observator Cultural'' (meaning "The Cultural Observer" in English) is a weekly literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast ...
'', Nr. 469, April 2009
Lungu has been described as one of the ''
decreței Decree 770 was a decree of the communist government of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, signed in 1967. It restricted abortion and contraception, and was intended to create a new and large Romanian population. The term (from the Romanian la ...
'', or children of the
baby boom A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase of births. This demography, demographic phenomenon is usually an ascribed characteristic within the population of a specific nationality, nation or culture. Baby booms are caused by various ...
imposed by the communist ban on abortion.
Paul Cernat Paul Cernat (born August 5, 1972 in Bucharest) is a Romanian essayist and literary critic. He has a Ph.D. summa cum laude in philology. Cernat has been a member of the Writers' Union of Romania since 2009. As of 2013, he is lecturer of Romanian l ...

"Dan Lungu, multilateral dezvoltat"
in ''
Observator Cultural ''Observator Cultural'' (meaning "The Cultural Observer" in English) is a weekly literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast ...
'', Nr. 218, April 2004
He completed his education in
Iași Iași ( , , ; also known by other #Etymology and names, alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the Cities in Romania, third largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical ...
, at the local university's Sociology Department, while pursuing interests in
track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...
, as well as Go."Top 50. Cei mai sexy intelectuali: 46 - Dan Lungu"
, in ''
Academia Cațavencu ''Academia Cațavencu'' (, "The Cațavencu Academy") is a Romanian satirical magazine founded in 1991 and made famous by its investigative journalism. ''Academia Cațavencu'' also owns ''Radio Guerrilla' an FM radio station with national coverag ...
'', March 5, 2009
Having received his Ph.D. with a thesis on
identity formation Identity formation, also called identity development or identity construction, is a complex process in which humans develop a clear and unique view of themselves and of their identity. Self-concept, personality development, and values are all cl ...
, Alexandre Fillon
"Spécial Roumanie. Lungu, un sociologue dans le poulailler"
, in '' Lire'', November 2005
he later pursued postdoctoral studies at the
University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
. Lungu developed a passion for writing from a young age, but debuted in literature only in the early 1990s. In 1996, he and several other Iași-based authors founded the literary society ''Club 8'', Șerban Axinte
"Drama Emiliei Apostoae, dincolo de ficțiune"
in ''
Tribuna Tribuna may refer to: * ''Tribuna'' (Russian newspaper), a Russian weekly newspaper * ''Tribuna Portuguesa'', a bilingual newspaper serving the Portuguese-American community * Tribuna.com, a digital sports publisher * Tribuna Monumental, a monum ...
'', Nr. 117/2007
Alina Purcaru
"Dan Lungu: 'La noi, scriitorul se comportă ca o găină cu ou de aur' "
in ''
Cotidianul The logo used between 2003 and 2007 ''Cotidianul'' (meaning ''The Daily'' in English) is a Romanian-language newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern E ...
'', February 27, 2009
and he consequently came to be seen as its main theorist. Among those who frequented the circle during the following years were authors of various schools, such as Constantin Acosmei, Șerban Alexandru, Radu Andriescu, Michael Astner,
Emil Brumaru Emil Brumaru (; 25 December 1938 – 5 January 2019) was a Romanian writer and poet. He was renowned for his erotic poetry. Biography Born in Bahmutea, Bessarabia, Brumaru studied medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Iași before turnin ...
,
Mariana Codruț Mariana Codruţ (born 1 November 1956 in Prisacani, Romania) is a Romanian poet, writer and journalist. Works ''Poetry'': * Măceşul din magazia de lemne (Junimea,1982). * Schiţă de autoportret (Junimea, 1986). * Tabieturile nopţii de ...
, Gabriel Horațiu Decuble,
Radu Pavel Gheo Pavel Gheorghiță Radu (; born October 3, 1969), known by the pseudonym Radu Pavel Gheo (), is a Romanian fiction writer and essayist. Gheo is a member of PEN Club from Romania (since 2005) and of the Romanian Writers' Union (since 2003). Bio ...
, Florin Lăzărescu, Ovidiu Nimigean,
Antonio Patraș Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language–speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular m ...
, Dan Sociu and Lucian Dan Teodorovici. The first volume bearing Lungu's signature saw print with Editura Junimea in 1996: a poetry collection, it carried the title ''Muchii'' ("Edges"). His stories, including ''Buldozeristul'' ("The Bulldozer Operator"), winner of the Editura Nemira prize for 1997, saw print in various venues during the late 1990s. Costi Rogozanu
"Dan Lungu, ''Cheta la flegmă''"
in ''
Observator Cultural ''Observator Cultural'' (meaning "The Cultural Observer" in English) is a weekly literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast ...
'', Nr. 1, February 2000
Lungu also debuted as a dramatist, his work being included in two anthologies of young Romanian theater. The first among these writings is the 1995 ("A Lesson. Or Something like That"), first performed in 2002 by Bucharest's Green Hours
fringe theater Fringe theatre is theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.Kemp, Robert, ''More that is Fr ...
under the name of ''Cu cuțitul la os'' ("A Knife Cut to the Bone"); the second such text, published in 1996, was called ''Vinovatul să facă un pas înainte'' ("Will the Guilty Man Take One Step Forward"). Having made his editorial debut in short story with the 1999 collection ''Cheta la flegmă'', he regularly published new works of fiction and cultural analysis over the following years. Between 2001 and 2002, he took over as editor in chief of ''Timpul''. In 2003, Lungu published three books of essays on literary theory and
microsociology Microsociology is one of the main levels of analysis (or focuses) of sociology, concerning the nature of everyday human social interactions and agency on a small scale: face to face.Smelser, Neil J. 1997. ''Problematics of Sociology.''. Microsociol ...
, titled respectively ''Povestirile vieții. Teorie și documente'' ("Life Stories. Theories and Documents"), ''Construcția identității într-o societate totalitară. O cercetare sociologică asupra scriitorilor'' ("The Construction of Identity in a Totalitarian Society. A Sociological Study on Writers") and ''Cartografii în tranziție. Eseuri de sociologia artei și literaturii'' ("Transitional Cartographies. Essays of Art and Literary Sociology"). Also that year came a second work in drama, ''Nuntă la parter'' ("Wedding on the Ground Floor"), and a reprint of ''Cheta la flegmă'' under the title of ''Proză cu amănuntul'' ("Retail Prose"), which also featured a dossier of critical commentary from all sides of the literary scene and an account of his visit to
Transnistria Transnistria, officially known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and locally as Pridnestrovie, is a Landlocked country, landlocked Transnistria conflict#International recognition of Transnistria, breakaway state internationally recogn ...
, a breakaway region of Romania's neighbor
Moldova Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...
, governed as an
unrecognized state A sovereign state is a state that has the highest authority over a territory. It is commonly understood that a sovereign state is independent. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may also refer to a constituent country, or ...
.
Cosmin Ciotloș Cosmin is a masculine Romanian given name of Greek origin. Notable people with the name include: *Cosmin Băcilă (born 1983), Romanian footballer * Cosmin Bărcăuan (born 1978), Romanian footballer *Cosmin Bodea (born 1973), Romanian footballer a ...

"La închiderea ediției"
, in ''
România Literară ''România Literară'' is a cultural and literary magazine from Romania. In its original edition, it was founded on 1 January 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași until 3 December 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared ...
'', Nr. 27/2008
They were followed in 2004 by the novel ''Raiul găinilor''. A second volume of short stories, titled ''Băieți de gașcă'' (
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
for both "Boys in a Gang" and "Good Fellows"), saw print in 2005. After joining fellow ''Club 8'' member Gheo in authoring a study of
social history Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. Historians who write social history are called social historians. Social history came to prominence in the 1960s, spreading f ...
and microsociology, investigating impact of communist rule on Romanian women, published in 2008 as ''Tovarășe de drum. Experiența feminină în comunism'' ("Female Fellow Travelers. Female Experience under Communism"), Lungu returned to fiction with the 2009 novel ''Cum să uiți o femeie'' ("How to Forget a Woman"). A resident of Iași, Dan Lungu is married and the father of two. One of the first authors from the post-Revolution period to collect a steady profit from literary contributions, Marius Chivu
"Dragoste & pocăință"
in ''
Dilema Veche ''Dilema veche'' ( English: "Old Dilemma") is a Romanian weekly magazine that covers culture, social topics, and politics. It was founded in 2004 as the successor to the magazine ''Dilema'', which was founded in 1993. Both magazines were founded by ...
'', Vol. VI, Nr. 268, April 2009
he invested his money into a
chalet A chalet (pronounced in British English; in American English usually ), also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, typical of the Alpine region in Europe. It is made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof and wide, well-su ...
on the outskirts of Iași. He visited France in 2005, invited by the ''Belles Etrangères'' cultural exchange program, and, in 2007, returned as a Writer-in-Residence at the Villa Mont Noir,
Marguerite Yourcenar Marguerite Yourcenar (, ; ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 190317 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the Prix Femina and ...
's birthplace. He was twice nominated for the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
's Jean Monnet Award for Literature in 2008. The target of much public interest, ''Sînt o babă comunistă!'' was considered for a film adaptation by Romanian director
Stere Gulea Stere Gulea (born 2 August 1943) is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. He was born in Mihail Kogălniceanu commune, Constanța County, in an Aromanian family that had fled from the Kaliakra region of Southern Dobruja during the 1940 popu ...
.
Octavian Soviany Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in ...

"Un studiu de caz"
in ''
Tribuna Tribuna may refer to: * ''Tribuna'' (Russian newspaper), a Russian weekly newspaper * ''Tribuna Portuguesa'', a bilingual newspaper serving the Portuguese-American community * Tribuna.com, a digital sports publisher * Tribuna Monumental, a monum ...
'', Nr. 133/2008
As of 2009, Lungu's work had been translated into nine languages, including a critically acclaimed
French-language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...
version of ''Raiul găinilor'' (''Le paradis des poules'', Éditions Jacqueline Chambon, 2005).
Cosmin Ciotloș Cosmin is a masculine Romanian given name of Greek origin. Notable people with the name include: *Cosmin Băcilă (born 1983), Romanian footballer * Cosmin Bărcăuan (born 1978), Romanian footballer *Cosmin Bodea (born 1973), Romanian footballer a ...

"Incapacitatea acomodării"
, in ''
România Literară ''România Literară'' is a cultural and literary magazine from Romania. In its original edition, it was founded on 1 January 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași until 3 December 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared ...
'', Nr. 20/2007
Andrei Terian
"Momeala povestitorului"
in ''
Ziarul Financiar ''Ziarul Financiar'' is a daily financial newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania. Aside from business information, it features sections focusing on careers and properties, as well as a special Sunday newspaper. ''Ziarul Financiar'' also publish ...
'', September 7, 2007
In its Spanish translation, published in 2009, ''Sînt o babă comunistă!'' was included by ''
El País (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second-most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . is the most read newspaper in ...
'' daily in a "best of" chart for humorous literature. Also in 2009, a chart compiled by the satirical and lifestyle magazine ''
Academia Cațavencu ''Academia Cațavencu'' (, "The Cațavencu Academy") is a Romanian satirical magazine founded in 1991 and made famous by its investigative journalism. ''Academia Cațavencu'' also owns ''Radio Guerrilla' an FM radio station with national coverag ...
'' ranked Lungu 46th among the "50 sexiest Romanian intellectuals". During the 2016 parliamentary election, Lungu ran for and won a seat in the
Romanian Senate 2012–2016 2008–2012 In December 2008, the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) and the political alliance established between the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and Conservative Party (PC) formed a coalition government. 2004–2008 In the ...
on the lists of the
Save Romania Union The Save Romania Union (, USR) is a Liberalism, liberal List of political parties in Romania, political party in Romania. It is the fourth-largest party in the Parliament of Romania, holding 40 seats in the Chamber of Deputies (Romania), Chamber ...
. He subsequently left his prior position as director of the Museum of Romanian Literature.


Style


Context

Ever since his debut in prose, Dan Lungu has drawn attention as a leading figure among a generational wave of prose writers, most of whom published their work with
Polirom Polirom or Editura Polirom ("Polirom" Publishing House) is a Romanian publishing house with a tradition of publishing classics of international literature and also various titles in the fields of social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, and ...
. Bianca Burța-Cernat
"Cum mai stăm cu proza românească?" (I)
in ''
Observator Cultural ''Observator Cultural'' (meaning "The Cultural Observer" in English) is a weekly literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast ...
'', Nr. 360, February 2007
Cristina Chevereșan
"Generația-electroșoc"
, in ''
România Literară ''România Literară'' is a cultural and literary magazine from Romania. In its original edition, it was founded on 1 January 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași until 3 December 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared ...
'', Nr. 34/2006
Within the Polirom collection, which primarily comprises
autofiction Autofiction is, in literary criticism, a form of fictionalized autobiography. Definition In autofiction, an author may decide to recount their life in the Third-person narrative, third person, to modify significant details and characters, use in ...
al works, Lungu's contribution is judged by critic Bianca Burța-Cernat to have been among the "good/interesting/well-written" category. She believes him to be of the same rank as Cezar Paul-Bădescu, Victoria Comnea,
Radu Pavel Gheo Pavel Gheorghiță Radu (; born October 3, 1969), known by the pseudonym Radu Pavel Gheo (), is a Romanian fiction writer and essayist. Gheo is a member of PEN Club from Romania (since 2005) and of the Romanian Writers' Union (since 2003). Bio ...
, Ana Maria Sandu, Cecilia Ștefănescu and Lucian Dan Teodorovici, but below the "very good" category of Petre Barbu, T. O. Bobe,
Filip Florian Filip Florian (born May 16, 1968) is a Romanian writer and journalist. Biography Filip Florian studied Geology and Geophysics in Bucharest. Between 1990 and 1992, he worked as an editor for ''Cuvîntul'' magazine and later on, until 1999, as a co ...
, Florin Lăzărescu, Sorin Stoica and
Bogdan Suceavă Bogdan Suceavă (born September 27, 1969) is a Romanian-American mathematician and writer, working since 2002 as professor of mathematics at California State University Fullerton. He is also a honorary research professor with the STAR-UBB Institu ...
. The authentic streak of Lungu's narratives was highlighted by Mihaela Ursa, a literary reviewer for ''
Apostrof ''Apostrof'' (Romanian for "Apostrophe") is a monthly literary magazine published in Cluj-Napoca, Romania under the Romanian Writers' Union patronage. It was founded in 1990 by Babeș-Bolyai University professor Marta Petreu, who is also its edit ...
'' magazine, who claimed: "With Dan Lungu, and not just with him, our literature seems to have fortunately parted with the complexes of the genius and that of the masterpiece, moving back closer to the reader." Mihaela Ursa
"Baba comunistă c'est moi!"
, in ''
Apostrof ''Apostrof'' (Romanian for "Apostrophe") is a monthly literary magazine published in Cluj-Napoca, Romania under the Romanian Writers' Union patronage. It was founded in 1990 by Babeș-Bolyai University professor Marta Petreu, who is also its edit ...
'', Nr. 6/2007
Poet and critic
Octavian Soviany Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in ...
notes: "Dan Lungu refuses ..the monarchic perspective of the
demiurge In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the Demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. Various sects of Gnostics adopted the term '' ...
-novelist who always gazes on the world from above .. for he treats his characters 'from one equal to another', places himself among them, advancing a vision 'from within' which confers upon the narrative some extra authenticity and naturalness." Also according to Soviany, Dan Lungu's prose is connected to "the great Balzacian tradition" and "the masters of the verist short story". Similarly, literary critic Daniel Cristea-Enache argues that Lungu is separated from his generation by the understanding that prose is "in large measure written not for oneself, but for another. For others, the more of them the better." Daniel Cristea-Enache
"Marea conciliere"
, in ''
România Literară ''România Literară'' is a cultural and literary magazine from Romania. In its original edition, it was founded on 1 January 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași until 3 December 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared ...
'', Nr. 33/2007
Researcher Cristina Chevereșan sees a special link between the works of Lungu, Florian and Stoica, "epics of life lived in the often suffocating circle of a collectivity as scanty and organically welded as it is oppressive". In its immediate Romanian context, Lungu's work has occasionally been ranked among "recovery literature" pieces—diverse works which, in the post-
censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...
era, provide retrospective testimonies or analytical overviews of the communist period. This classification, which places Lungu alongside Petru Cimpoeșu and
Ion Manolescu An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...
, is, according to critic
Cosmin Ciotloș Cosmin is a masculine Romanian given name of Greek origin. Notable people with the name include: *Cosmin Băcilă (born 1983), Romanian footballer * Cosmin Bărcăuan (born 1978), Romanian footballer *Cosmin Bodea (born 1973), Romanian footballer a ...
, exaggerated and simplistic: "Personally, I am rather skeptic toward any sort of necessity that is imposed or predictable." Another particularity of Lungu's work involves his local affiliation, connected with the culture of Iași city and the
historical region History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
of
Moldavia Moldavia (, or ; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially in ...
. Cernat, who noted that Lungu has a preference for publishing his work with Iași-based venues, deduced "the strategy of asserting a personal project with several levels, which assigns a certain place to a 'Moldavian' (Iașian) identity". Reportedly, Lungu refused several offers to move into
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...
, Romania's capital, to which he prefers his adoptive Iași.


Neorealism and Postmodernism

Dan Lungu himself places stress on his affiliation to a form of Neorealism deemed " microsocial"—that is, primarily concerned with everyday subjects and simple interactions between individuals. His main influences include foreign authors
Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrians, Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has ...
,
Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas on 26 February 1956) is a French author of novels, poems, and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker, and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. H ...
and
Elfriede Jelinek Elfriede Jelinek (; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors to write in German and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices ...
, while his imagery has drawn comparisons with the films of Yugoslavian-born director
Emir Kusturica Emir Kusturica ( sr-cyrl, Емир Кустурица, ; born 24 November 1954) is a Serbian film director, screenwriter, actor, film producer and musician. Kusturica has been an active filmmaker since the 1980s. He has competed at the Cannes ...
. Dan C. Mihăilescu
"Gât golaș de România"
in ''
Ziarul Financiar ''Ziarul Financiar'' is a daily financial newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania. Aside from business information, it features sections focusing on careers and properties, as well as a special Sunday newspaper. ''Ziarul Financiar'' also publish ...
'', May 18, 2004
Lungu has also become one of the Romanian authors best known outside Romania, and, according to literary critic Marius Chivu, one in the rare position of being recommended to a local public with quotes from foreign critics. This notoriety, coupled with the candor of his accounts, has reputedly sparked criticism that Lungu is "ruining Romania's image abroad", which prompted Lungu to state: "I am not a
Foreign Ministry In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral re ...
employee." At the same time, Dan Lungu's literary contributions adopt a number of traits which have been defined as
postmodern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wo ...
. Iulian Ciocan
"Realismul epocii postmoderne"
, in ''
Contrafort ''Contrafort'' was a Moldovan magazine focused on the contemporary Moldovan literature and culture and published from 1994 until 2021 in Chișinău, Moldova. References External links * Contrafort - 15 ani (Ce înseamnă și ce a însemn ...
'', Nr. 1-3 (63-65), January–March 2000
These aspects include Lungu's
parodic A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...
take on
cliché A cliché ( or ; ) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or literal and figurative language, figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being b ...
s and commonplace ideas, a process which, according to Ursa, results in "cultural short-circuits". His prose is also placed in connection to the debates surrounding the Postmodern nature of the '' Optzeciști'', writers who debuted a decade before Lungu, but whose contribution is seen as influential on the young literary scene. Lungu is a successor to the Neorealist group among the ''Optzeciști'', Bianca Burța-Cernat
"Cum mai stăm cu proza românească?" (II)
in ''
Observator Cultural ''Observator Cultural'' (meaning "The Cultural Observer" in English) is a weekly literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast ...
'', Nr. 361, March 2007
and seen by Moldovan literary critic Iulian Ciocan as less indebted to "the Postmodern
paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...
". Writing in 2000, Ciocan argued: "Dan Lungu's debut is remarkable because the young writer does not frantically embrace the Postmodern technique and
ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...
, but uses them only to the measure where they lend more authenticity to his prose." A similar point is made by Cristian Teodorescu, himself one of the ''Optzeciști'', who parallels Lungu's storytelling techniques with those developed before 1989 by
Mircea Nedelciu Mircea Nedelciu (; November 12, 1950 – July 12, 1999) was a Romanian short-story writer, novelist, essayist and literary critic, one of the leading exponents of the ''Optzeciști'' generation in Literature of Romania, Romanian letters. The auth ...
. Cristian Teodorescu
"Un ventriloc literar: Dan Lungu"
in ''
Cotidianul The logo used between 2003 and 2007 ''Cotidianul'' (meaning ''The Daily'' in English) is a Romanian-language newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern E ...
'', November 22, 2005
Commenting on Lungu's relation to a larger historical and stylistic context, Burța-Cernat wrote: "the prose writers of the newer category, the '
social anthropologists Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...
', do not aim to reinvent the world by capturing it within fabulous scenarios, but merely to describe it. They operate with a lens, a microscope .. avid for describing its textures and the most anodyne of its details." This "
minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...
" tendency, she noted, falls in line with 1980 authors—Nedelciu, Teodorescu, Sorin Preda,
Ioan Groșan Ioan is a variation on the name John found in Aromanian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Welsh (), and Sardinian. It is usually masculine. The female equivalent in Romanian and Bulgarian is Ioana. In Russia, the name Ioann is usually reserved f ...
—, and also includes Lungu's colleagues Stoica, Teodorovici, Radu Aldulescu, Andrei Bodiu and Călin Torsan. A distinct view is held by Cristea-Enache, who views Dan Lungu as one of the authors who parted with both "the endless ironical games" of the 1980 generation and the "harshness of 1990s Naturalism (literature), naturalism", while avoiding "aesthetic compromise". According to literary chronicler Bogdan Crețu, a "coherently voiced program" is observable throughout Lungu's work in fiction, and is encapsulated into Lungu's own reference to "retail prose". Bogdan Crețu
"Dan Lungu: proza cu amănuntul"
, in ''
Tribuna Tribuna may refer to: * ''Tribuna'' (Russian newspaper), a Russian weekly newspaper * ''Tribuna Portuguesa'', a bilingual newspaper serving the Portuguese-American community * Tribuna.com, a digital sports publisher * Tribuna Monumental, a monum ...
'', Nr. 107/2007, p.6
Dan Lungu acknowledges that his main literary works tend to center each on a particular narrative technique, but recounts that the substance for this technique is only apparent to himself ''A priori and a posteriori, a posteriori''. The subtle connection between Lungu's sociological research and his fiction writings has also been discussed by critics Andrei Terian and
Paul Cernat Paul Cernat (born August 5, 1972 in Bucharest) is a Romanian essayist and literary critic. He has a Ph.D. summa cum laude in philology. Cernat has been a member of the Writers' Union of Romania since 2009. As of 2013, he is lecturer of Romanian l ...
. The latter notes: "Dan Lungu is a professional who does not mix his levels: the areas are firmly separated, even if they communicate on the deep level of the overall project."


Works


Debut

Some of Lungu's earliest published works were poetry pieces which, according to writer Șerban Axinte, do not reach the same standard as his other contributions: "Few still recall that Dan Lungu has debuted as a poet. The ''Muchii'' volume ..no longer communicates much to us, even if [it] does not lack certain several good, intelligent texts, albeit lacking the force and consistency to impose an author." His debut work in short prose, grouped as ''Cheta la flegmă'', is, in Iulian Ciocan's definition, a book about "the prisoners of everyday": a bulldozer operator, an asylum custodian, a thief, a group of soldiers, a child and an unhappy couple. According to critic and journalist Costi Rogozanu: "Under a 'strong' title, Dan Lungu collects the most diverse of prose pieces, some written in the most direct argotic language, others including the most meticulous of traditional lines. ..The Iași-based writer sets to clearly delimit his area of interest—daily life in the post-Revolution period—, varying with irony the types of writing he uses." The shock value of the title was also noted by Cernat, who concluded that its apparent connection to the "miserabilist" tone of more radical Romanian literature was "rather inadequate". An argument of similar substance was provided by Cristea-Enache. In his view, the stories are "finely written" portraits of people caught in the "Post-communism, post-communist transition", to the "stark setting of 'tower block life' which nevertheless almost completely lacks—bizarrely—the 'Consumerism, consumerist' and Pop culture, pop ingredients of post-communist kitsch." Ciocan interprets the work's overall perspective as: "Life is a spectacle both tragic and comical .. into which 'things great and small' are undiscernably mixed together." According to the same critic, a common trait of the characters is their inability of discerning the human condition: "The maximum they are capable of is having the revelation that 'today you are healthy, strong, drinking like a calf and subject to no harm, and tomorrow bam! the finger points! 'You die!', and you die just like that.' Egotistic, insolent, hypocritical characters, but also gentle, jovial, depending on the circumstances. They are incredibly authentic, convincing, owing precisely to their being stuck in the morass of everyday." Cernat proposes: "Just like in the works of his junior Sorin Stoica and those of a few others, one senses in these minute 'stories of life' the pleasure of collecting 'mentality samples'." Some of the book's characters have to deal with circumstances that test their limits: in ''Buldozeristul'', the protagonist uses his machine to bury his wife and daughter after failing to speed up procedures for a proper funeral; an old age pensioner who seduces women while queuing for gas cylinder refills; and, in the eponymous writing, a teenager who is publicly humiliated by having his hands and arms covered in spit. Commenting on 2008 reprint, Ciotloș argued "a permanently invoked ''Cheta la flegmă'' of 1999 has become, four years later, a permanently appreciated ''Proză cu amănuntul''", describing the fragments of reviews collected by Lungu as "unbelievably high". Cernat took a more negative view of the new edition, writing that, while the original stories were still relevant, they "only seems to have been republished in order to complete the author's 'polyvalent' profile". The reportage piece detailing Lungu's trip to
Transnistria Transnistria, officially known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic and locally as Pridnestrovie, is a Landlocked country, landlocked Transnistria conflict#International recognition of Transnistria, breakaway state internationally recogn ...
notably depicts the preservation of Soviet Union, Soviet and communist symbolism throughout the region, the officially sanctioned imposition of Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet, Moldovan Cyrillic even to the point where schoolteachers use it for transliterating French-language texts, and the religious aspects of local sports. According to Ciotloș: "The ideology of the 50s appears to have been frozen here for more than half a century." The play ''Nuntă la parter'' pursues a different path, being structured as an abstract parable: characters known as the Soldiers, isolated from the outside world, are pushed by a commanding voice into performing sinister and absurd acts, including the so-called "wedding on the ground floor", while vaguer exterior sounds provide samples of communist slogans, chanting and, eventually, violence associated with the Revolution. Cernat, who calls the play Lungu's "most vulnerable" work, cites and agrees with the analysis provided by critic Alina Nelega, according to which the text is "a study of a mechanism, rather than a gallery of characters."


''Povestirile vieții'' and ''Construcția identității''

''Povestirile vieții'', Lungu's scientific study of 2003, also marks his preoccupation with oral history as a path to investigating Romania's communist past, in particular the 1965-1989 regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Paul Cernat commends the work for breaking with the pattern of similar post-1989 recoveries, which mainly focus on interviews with political personalities. In contrast, Lungu's book centers on three study cases from
working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
environments—Florentina Ichim, Vasile Ariton and Petre Jurescu—whom the regime took pride in claiming were its support base. Dan C. Mihăilescu
"La chermeza proletară"
in ''
Ziarul Financiar ''Ziarul Financiar'' is a daily financial newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania. Aside from business information, it features sections focusing on careers and properties, as well as a special Sunday newspaper. ''Ziarul Financiar'' also publish ...
'', December 17, 2003
Their retrospective images of the era vary significantly, fluctuating between nostalgia and virulent anti-communism. However, all three witnesses recall having themselves resorted to alternative and illicit mechanisms of survival or self-promotion, in particular theft and political corruption. In his commentary on the interviews, Lungu concluded that, in some cases, the image of workers' lifestyles as offered by the
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
apparatus was real, "contrary to our expectations". He added, to Cernat's agreement: "Overturning that which was officially stated during the epoch is not indicative of the real state of things and only drags us down into another ideology [...]. That is why we have said: back to the facts!" In his review of the book, literary critic Dan C. Mihăilescu resonated with such observations, noting their revelatory aspect: "once confronted with the accounts .. I convinced myself once and for all that the things which, under Ceaușism, I could still believe united us into a solidarity of suffering, are as false as can be. That is, even though we waited in grueling queues, in the same cold, for the same food rations, an ocean existed between the proletariat ..and the intellectuals, between 'base and superstructure'. We were simply put two worlds, not just figuratively, but also effectively. There was nothing for us to sell and steal, whereas they had access to the circuits of theft, to the web of programmed lawlessness." With ''Construcția identității într-o societate totalitară'', seen by Cernat as "a study up to the international standards" and a work of "Entomology, entomological precision", Dan Lungu focuses on how writers and intellectuals related to ideological pressures, explores in particular the theme of "resistance through culture" (as opposed to outspoken Dissident, dissidence). The thesis advanced by Lungu is that Romania's pre-communist authoritarian traditions accompanied Westernization, and therefore failed to rally the society around the notion of legality. Paraphrasing the author's conclusions, Cernat writes: "The 'Voluntarism (philosophy), voluntarist and Elitism, elitist' projects of emancipation, the intellectuals' Paternalism, paternalistic Bovarysme, the destruction of the traditional model of the village and the partial assumption of modern values in the urban environment, the weakness of civil society have all facilitated adaptation to the Stalinism, Stalinist and, later, National communism, national-communist models [...]. Hence the duplicity, the lack of solidarity among the 'resisters' within a Patriarchy, patriarchal, mostly rural, country..." Historian Cristian Vasile sees Lungu's study as akin to the contributions of anthropologist Katherine Verdery, in that it defines the writers' individual roles in "the process of transforming society and creating the New Soviet man, new man", while serving as an investigation of social identity constructs. Vasile quotes the book for its conclusions about the impact of agitprop, Socialist realism in Romania, socialist realism and censorship on
Romanian literature Romanian literature () is the entirety of literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language or by any authors native to Romania. Early Romanian literature inc ...
and Education in Romania, education, including a corroboration of the censors' own dissatisfaction with their activity, or the link Lungu establishes between the spread of atheism and the communist version of science education. A distinct section of the essay refers to the tradition of History of the Jews in Romania, Jewish Romanian literature, and in particular to the Jewish impact on modernist literature. In his review of the chapter, Cernat discussed the "relevant—if at times exaggerated—conclusions" Lungu draws on minority authors having been pushed by their social marginalization into becoming the cultural avant-garde.
Paul Cernat Paul Cernat (born August 5, 1972 in Bucharest) is a Romanian essayist and literary critic. He has a Ph.D. summa cum laude in philology. Cernat has been a member of the Writers' Union of Romania since 2009. As of 2013, he is lecturer of Romanian l ...
, ''Avangarda românească și complexul periferiei: primul val'', Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 2007, p.33.
In Cernat's view, ''Construcția identității...'' "imposes itself through span, seriousness and an irreproachable professionalism", but suffers from "a savant jargon which limits [its] reception to the circle of specialists."


''Raiul găinilor''

With ''Raiul găinilor'', Lungu's extends his focus on the provincial and suburban environments into novel form. The book, written over one summer, carries the subtitle "A faux novel of rumors and mysteries" and is defined by its author as a work on "the circulations of rumors". Its heroes are feeble men and women who interpret the larger world based on things that occur in their immediate vicinity, Acacia Street. The narrative borrows from the conventions of the frame story, and, Terian notes, owes direct inspiration to ''Hanu Ancuței'', an Interwar period, interwar volume by the classic Romanian author Mihail Sadoveanu. While Terian believes ''Raiul găinilor'' to be primarily calm and distant, his colleague Mircea Iorgulescu, who prefaced the work, argued: "Under a benign and slow-going appearance, the novel's world is actually terrifying. It lives mechanically, though Automatic behavior, automatisms which provide it with a kind of demented functioning, similar to one of the characters, a woman who endlessly knits pullovers without watching her own hands." One fragment which drew critical attention is that in which the humble Milică, who has once been allowed into the house of the reclusive, imposing and envied Colonel, embellishes the account of its luxurious standards in order to captivate his peers. Similarly, the Pseudologia fantastica, mythomaniacal factory worker Mitu obsesses over his supposed chance encounter with communist leader Ceaușescu. In addition to these topical aspects, the novel fictionalizes professional incompetence, feud, adultery and working class drinking culture. It ultimately deals with the impact of post-Revolution economic transition, reflected in the characters' ambiguous memories of Ponzi schemes, or projected in the account of how the closure of non-lucrative factories prevented the employees from continuing to steal industrial materials. According to Andrei Terian, the book is primarily relevant for the way in the "captivating" and "discreet" narrative supports events of marginal importance, with "the absence of any demonstrative intent" for a defining characteristic. Lungu however recounted having written it with "pleasure, a Sadomasochism, masochistic pleasure". Writing in 2005, French reviewer Alexandre Fillon argued that ''Raiul găinilor'' proved a "hilarious" read, whose plot "says a lot about the Romania of yesterday and of the present." However, he also wrote that the work "did not receive critical unanimity". In contrast, Terian defines the reaction of Romanian reviews as "virtually unanimous adhesion".


''Băieți de gașcă''

''Băieți de gașcă'', which comprises 11 short stories, is noted for its alternation of purist aesthetics and challenging use of Romanian profanity, Romanian slang, while its attempt to isolate pieces of the everyday creates a link with reportage. This approach to storytelling is likened by Bogdan Crețu with the prose of Alexandru Monciu-Sudinski, while Cristian Teodorescu connects it with J. D. Salinger's ''Nine Stories (Salinger), Nine Stories'' and the poetry of
Emil Brumaru Emil Brumaru (; 25 December 1938 – 5 January 2019) was a Romanian writer and poet. He was renowned for his erotic poetry. Biography Born in Bahmutea, Bessarabia, Brumaru studied medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Iași before turnin ...
. Noting the difficulties of this approach, particularly in those stories which explore the marginal areas of Romanian society, Crețu commends Dan Lungu for opting in favor of first-person narratives written from within, which allow him to preserve the authenticity of uncultured or ungrammatical speech. In Teodorescu's account, the author "grows so close to his characters that he ends up completely inside their skins. He takes the voice of a little girl shocked by the brutality of family life and the promiscuity of life in a block apartment. Or he turns himself into a gang boy and recounts his experiences in argotic language, which does not shy away from any of the words censored out of the latest ''Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române'' edition." Daniel Cristea-Enache highlights the individualized use of language and gestures, from the "infantile repetitiousness" characteristic of little girls to the "style of tricky young men", believing these traits to be in line with "the exploitation of orality" by authors such as Sorin Stoica and Ovidiu Verdeș. While noting that Lungu's ''Băieți de gașcă'' stories inherently fail to explore "a more profound vision", Crețu argues: "Dan Lungu [nevertheless] manages to render this shortcoming relative through irresistible comedy: not one of word play .. but one of Situation comedy, situation." The volume's eponymous story thus alternates between the apparent seriousness of gang culture and the obstacles they face as individuals, with episodes such as one gang member's frustrations over his girlfriend's Sexual addiction, nymphomania. Other sections of the volume strike a different note, and include a fictionalized account the life of a young England, Englishwoman who decides to settle in Romania. Focusing on Lungu's ability to surprise his readers, Teodorescu commented: "Once in a while, if one does not want to let himself be conquered by his tricks, one may have reactions of mistrust ..Dan Lungu anticipates this reaction as well and builds up complicity for what he does, like a prestidigitator who, at the same time as jokingly letting you in on how he has made you believe that he was able to cut himself in two, leads you into the fog of the next trick [...]. Whoever carefully reads Dan Lungu gets a free lesson in the manipulation techniques to which all those who wish to have us convinced of the truth in non-literary fiction will expose us without warning and at times successfully." Cristea-Enache, who praised ''Băieți de gașcă'' for displaying "natural breathing", "stylistic mobility" and "dexterity", also argued: "When the young prose author will manage to inject more substance into both his stories and novels, we shall have in him a leading exponent of this new-old literature."


''Sînt o babă comunistă!''

With the ample first-person narrative ''Sînt o babă comunistă!'', Lungu explores the theme of nostalgia and its pitfalls. Through introspection and Flashback (narrative), flashbacks, the volume depicts the disorientation and anguish of Emilia (Mica) Apostoae, an aging woman whose longing for the childhood and youth she spent under the communist regime make her block out negative memories of the period. According to Mihaela Ursa, the novel builds on two "extremely productive" sources, "literature about childhood (fed by the tremor of retrospection) and the literature of 'the innocent' (of Picaresque novel, picaresque extraction)." In Soviany's view, the text recalls the works of Moldovan author Vasile Ernu and elements from classic works in Romanian literature (from Ion Creangă (writer), Ion Creangă's ''Childhood Memories (Creangă), Childhood Memories'' to Marin Preda's ''Moromeții''), while Axinte believes it a synthesis of Lungu's own narrative techniques, seeping into "a kind of discourse objectification that has rarely been frequented in recent times." Ciotloș places stress on the work's reworking of communist stereotypes. He argues that Emilia Apostoae's early biography, in particular her migration from village to urban center, assimilates a theme from socialist realism ("the prose works produced and expired during the 1950s"), while the aspects of narrative language incorporate the diverse avatars of speech under ideological pressure, from the "parental and always costly discussions" confronting politically appointed supervisors and their nonconformist employees to subversive forms of Romanian humor and the "wooden tongue" of official speeches. Spread out between these fragments of authentic speech are Lungu's own observations, which prompt Ciotloș to argue: " ..this is where [the novel's] originality can be found, in the rare moments when he decides to intervene. When he blocks out the verbal stream to produce a funny remark, when he stretches a joke over several chapters, when, instead of diacritics, he places on the cover a majestic and Soviet Red star, five-cornered star." The narrative hook in ''Sînt o babă comunistă!'' is provided by Emilia's attempt to define her political convictions, after being questioned by her daughter, Alice. The content Emilia finds in juxtaposing communism and the happier moments of her life, peaking into episodes of utopianism, are seen as observation-based attempts to characterize an entire generation of Romanians. Emilia's erroneous train of thought becomes apparent in episodes where she recalls her employment at a state-owned factory. Her ideal, Ursa notes, is actually that of an "anti-world", where negative values are made to look positive: "work before the lunch break, so that one could slack off afterward .. 'creative' solutions for increasing productivity, generalized theft ('there was enough to steal from'), painting fir trees green when a visit by Ceaușescu was due, the presence of a good-natured man who traded in political jokes (the assigned informer, as it would turn out)." The constant movement between "before" and "after", Soviany notes, follow "the pendulum principle", serving to illustrate Emilia's sense of time and the experience of change as nauseating. The object of the novel, according to the critic, is comparable to the scope of a ''Bildungsroman'': "[''Sînt o babă comunistă!''] becomes the book about the female protagonist's transition from the infantile and paradise-like stage ..toward reflection and doubt, therefore toward maturity." The importance of this transformation to the plot is also discussed by Axinte, who argues that its revelations compensate for the fact that the novel "does not provide anything new (as information and biographical document) for those born and bred under communism." Cosmin Ciotloș sees the manner in which Lungu "tames with candor" the elements of a communist-style biography as "socialist realism redeeming itself on the last stretch of the race", stripped of conventions to become "purebred sociological realism". In Lungu's own definition, the book is built around "the decision process blueprint, where pros and cons confront themselves in the present, while invoking their timely roots."


''Tovarășe de drum''

''Tovarășe de drum'', the oral history collection coordinated by Lungu and his colleague
Radu Pavel Gheo Pavel Gheorghiță Radu (; born October 3, 1969), known by the pseudonym Radu Pavel Gheo (), is a Romanian fiction writer and essayist. Gheo is a member of PEN Club from Romania (since 2005) and of the Romanian Writers' Union (since 2003). Bio ...
in 2008, groups together the testimonies of 17 intellectual women with various social backgrounds, all of whom reflect back on totalitarian pressures. The list mostly includes professional writers, among them Adriana Babeți, Carmen Bendovski, Rodica Binder, Adriana Bittel,
Mariana Codruț Mariana Codruţ (born 1 November 1956 in Prisacani, Romania) is a Romanian poet, writer and journalist. Works ''Poetry'': * Măceşul din magazia de lemne (Junimea,1982). * Schiţă de autoportret (Junimea, 1986). * Tabieturile nopţii de ...
, Sanda Cordoș, Nora Iuga, Simona Popescu, Iulia Popovici, Doina Ruști and Simona Sora. Marius Chivu
"Feminități ilicite"
, in ''
Dilema Veche ''Dilema veche'' ( English: "Old Dilemma") is a Romanian weekly magazine that covers culture, social topics, and politics. It was founded in 2004 as the successor to the magazine ''Dilema'', which was founded in 1993. Both magazines were founded by ...
'', Vol. V, Nr. 235, August 2008
According to Bianca Burța-Cernat, the study, part of a "war on silence", falls in line with earlier contributions in this field—particularly those of Gabriel Horațiu Decuble, Doina Jela and Tia Șerbănescu. Bianca Burța-Cernat
"Cît de relevantă e diferența?"
in ''
Observator Cultural ''Observator Cultural'' (meaning "The Cultural Observer" in English) is a weekly literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast ...
'', Nr. 429, June 2008
Marius Chivu also underlines their subject's proximity to Cristian Mungiu's award-winning film ''4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days''. The narratives often focus on the presence and use of mundane objects, from Western world, Western contraband items such as condoms and fragrance, to monopoly products of the state economy. Florentina Ciuverca
"Comunismul femeilor"
in ''Evenimentul Zilei'', July 5, 2008
Among the diverse accounts in ''Tovarășe de drum'', Burța-Cernat singles out those of Babeți, who recalls the importance tote bags had for her family during two decades of communism, and Bittel, who speaks about the ideal female cook, as "the queen of ''Sarma (food), sarmale''". She is however critical of the fact that such a contribution was initiated by men, arguing that this impinges on its merits: "given the way in which they write here, the ladies invited to partake in this collective project leave the impression that they are striving to fall in line with the rules of a game, ..to confirm ..the already consolidated idea about them: the idea of difference—much too Essentialism, essentialist (and it is biological essentialism that is involved here)—, the idea that ..they see the world, politics included, different from humanity's masculine majority." As part of this comment, she also argues that the book is excessively indebted to concrete economic aspects which women found especially challenging, whereas the "generically human" intellectual needs are "placed in brackets". Chivu, who saw the work as fluctuating between the seriousness of Ruști's account and Babeți's humorous recollection, believed Simona Popescu's contribution, which describes communist experience as "laughing out of pity", to be "the most balanced". In reference to the entire text, and in particular accounts of the ban on abortion, he argues: "all [its] female authors fundamentally speak about the same thing: the torment of being a woman, between the frustration of having one's intimacy forbidden and the efforts of illicit femininity." Babeți's account was also viewed with interest by journalist Florentina Ciuverca, who also drew attention to Ruști's story about how, despite the official campaign against abortion, a doctor preemptively subjected her to curettage over a case of vaginal bleeding.


''Cum să uiți o femeie''

Written during Lungu's stay at the Villa Mont Noir, ''Cum să uiți o femeie'' is the story of Andi, an Investigative journalism, investigative journalist employed by a seedy newspaper, covering the period after his lover Marga decides to leave him unannounced. Lungu, who likens the volume's technique with a Möbius strip and a "psychological zoom", focuses on his protagonist's subsequent dismay, showing him as both character and narrator, while detailing his series of failed love affairs and his conclusion that Magda had never loved him. A secondary element in the plot recounts Andi's tightening bond with his landlord, the Adventism, Adventist preacher Set, a process illustrated by dialogues which evolve between proselytism and compassion. According to Marius Chivu, the relationship between Set and Andi is "the novel's consistent part" and a "tour de force", owing to "the natural manner and the authenticity with which [Lungu] recomposes the missionary and religious message." Chivu concludes: "Set is the actual character in this (elegantly written, but lacking in stylistic pretensions) novel, having, overall, enough pathos for a subject far more delicate than love for a woman, that is the love for one's neighbor. For some readers, this may mean very much." According to critic and writer Ovidiu Șimonca, ''Cum să uiți o femeie'' is "tight, ambitious, inciting", but the story line "is wrapped in too many outside details". The author himself compared ''Cum să uiți o femeie'' with ''Sînt o babă comunistă!'', noting that it was the first of his works to be completely separated from the memory of communism. He specified feeling "intoxicated" by his earlier themes and having an explicit wish was to create "a one hundred percent romance novel", arguing: "It was much harder for me to write about the world of Evangelicalism, Neoprotestantism than from a feminine perspective." He added having felt "a vague and persistent fear that there were mistakes to be made with each step [of the writing process]", explaining: "This being a setting relatively unknown to me, it was easily conceivable that I could have missed or inadequately placed significant details. I was also obsessed with the fear of not offending, not carelessly hurting the dignity of a religious minority. I did not write these articles so as to vilify the Born again (Christianity), born again, to perpetuate all sort of stereotypes about them, but to understand them and to create a powerful character, as I would hope is the case with presbyter Set [...]." Lungu also mentioned having learned to discard his own preconceptions about minority religions, and recounted having asked a pastor to verify the narrative as one from inside the religious phenomenon. Answering to objections about the lack of focus on the central love affair, he commented: "It is, most of all, a novel about memory: what happens to memory and how it restructures itself after a sentimental fracture in one's biography. Things are not very clear-cut, there is no single narrative in one's resurrecting memory, there is a passage from one zone to another, things are slippery, subtle, nuanced. ..Memory is like an onion that, when peeled, only grows bigger." He added that the novel could be read as the antithesis between the daily and the eternal: Andi's place of employment ("the newspaper") and the object of Christian reverence ("the Bible").


Notes


References

*Cristian Vasile, ''Literatura și artele în România comunistă. 1948-1953'', Humanitas publishing house, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2010.


External links


Official site''Cartografii în tranziție''
online version at the Editura LiterNet site {{DEFAULTSORT:Lungu, Dan Directors of museums in Romania Romanian essayists 21st-century Romanian historians Romanian humorists Romanian literary critics Romanian literary historians Romanian newspaper editors 20th-century Romanian novelists 21st-century Romanian novelists 20th-century Romanian poets 21st-century Romanian poets Romanian male short story writers Romanian short story writers Romanian sociologists Minimalist writers People from Botoșani Members of the Romanian Orthodox Church Members of the Senate of Romania Save Romania Union politicians Alexandru Ioan Cuza University alumni Academic staff of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University 1969 births Living people Romanian male dramatists and playwrights Romanian male essayists Romanian male novelists Romanian male poets 20th-century Romanian dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Romanian dramatists and playwrights