AUTHOR'S BIO

Norman Manea

Norman Manea is a Romanian novelist and essayist. He was recently awarded the Legion d’Honeur by France. His new novel is Vizuina (The Bunker).

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From Kafka to Gorbachev

Norman Manea Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2009-11-23

NEW YORK – On August 2, 1914, Franz Kafka wrote in his diary: “Germany has declared war against Russia. In the afternoon, swimming.” Kafka, the reclusive and visionary Central European writer, gave his name to the twentieth century. Seventy-five years had to pass after Kafka’s swim before Central and Eastern Europe would return to the broader European civilization. A Kafkaesque pause, some might say.... read

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A Lasting Poison

Norman Manea Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2008-11-20

The recent revelation of the Czech writer Milan Kundera’s early collaboration with the Communist police is merely the latest proof of the long half-life of a toxic past. But, in order to understand that epoch, we must comprehend its often ambiguous and overwhelming circumstances, never simplifying a multilayered daily reality for the sake of current political goals.... read

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Crime and Punishment, Refugee Style

Norman Manea Series: Europe at Home and Abroad

2007-11-15

The horrible murder of Giovanna Reggiani late last month by a young Romanian Roma near a refugee camp in the suburb of Tor di Quinto in Rome shocked both Italy and Romania. But to compound the tragedy through measures that target an entire minority is irresponsible, and will have grave moral and social consequences not only for the unjustly punished, but also for the punishers.... read

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New York, the Dada Capital

Norman Manea Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2005-08-31

I am looking down on Central Park and recall from half-a-century ago in a small town in Northern Romania a tall, white-haired man proclaiming his poem, “The Colors Red and Black.” Gazing over the park, I remember those Stalinist era verses:... read

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Don Quixote, Dissident

Norman Manea Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2005-05-16

It is now four centuries since the birth of a masterpiece whose author and hero both seem younger than we do. The simplest explanation for this may be found in Flaubert’s words about Don Quixote: “I found my origins in this book, which I knew by heart before I learned how to read.” Indeed, at the core of Don Quixote is something essential that we knew even before we read it but which became part of our nature only after we completed its mesmerizing journey. This is the unmistakable stamp of greatness in a writer.... read

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The Honor of Exile

Norman Manea Series: The Worldly Philosophers

2002-01-29

The Romanian sculptor Brancusi once said that when the artist is no longer a child, he is dead. I still don't know how much of an artist I have become, but I grasp what Brancusi was saying. I can grasp - even at my age - my childish enduring self. Writing is a childish profession, even when it becomes excessively serious, as children often are. ... read

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Blasphemy And Carnival

Norman Manea Series: The World in Words

1996-05-06

NEW YORK: From his Paris exile in 1970, Emil Cioran, the iconoclastic Romanian philosopher, wrote of his nostalgia for the somewhat naive energy of those who stayed behind. "I can guess the secret of so much vitality. Without hell, no illusions." Cioran felt old and worn out. "We pay dearly for not having suffered. We believe in nothing." In Bucharest, Cioran once savaged Romania’s corrupt interwar democracy. In Paris, however, his blasphemies against French idols, he wrote wistfully, were "well received...people like to demolish all reputations, even legitimate, even justified. Especially those." ... read

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