Occupation: Novelist Birth: February 14, 1937
Chess hasn't really influenced my literature. It's true, there's a character in Pigeon Post, an old chess player; but it's more of a wink, a self-por….
Our Onirisme movement was a synthesis between the Romantic Fantastique and Surrealism. Dimov and I rejected automatic writing. We loved surrealist pa….
The narrative image has more dimensions than the painted image - literature is more complex than painting. Initially, this complexity represents a di….
On the other hand, Surrealism has been a part of Romanian literature since forever. Even before Tzara, who was originally Romanian, we had Urmuz, who….
Where is automatism in the work of Chirico or Tanguy? Even Dali had to renounce it in order to be able to organize the space of the canvas according ….
After multiple trips to Paris and being accused of participating in 'heinous' activities in regard to the state, I found my Romanian nationality revo….
The literary game is the abyss of human society itself: interactive, playful and tragic. We can't live alone. For me, Robinson [Crusoe] is either a f….
At one point I had a very complicated plan to use the game of chess as a generating structure for writing. I prepared for a long time. I finally wrot….
Seine et Danube was launched in 2003 with the help of Romanian authorities who had finally realized the necessity of promoting literature and Romania….
I was a professional chess player in Romania, but only a small-time master. When I came to France, I continued playing chess for many years: I played….
The reader's impression is one of a dream - the only thing that's left upon waking is the memory of a melody at the end of a concert..
In so-called communist Romania, chess was held in high esteem, even if our champions were weaker than the Soviets. This game, this "sport of the mind….
For me, literature is the daughter of music: a bit heavy and more level headed than its mother. Literature submits to the same principles of successi….
But music doesn't sum up my approach to literature - even in Vain Art of the Fugue. To 'fugue' I had to invent 'trap-words,' or words that would forc….
It's not the subject of narration that interests me, but the structure. That's why I stay in touch with my old works, which I reread regularly. I don….
We could say that Romanian Onirisme was born from painting and not from surrealist literature. The visual is primordial. Dimov said, 'Dreams are not ….
In Necessary Marriage, I tried to repeat entire phrases without the reader noticing. My work doesn't have the rigor of music, but I hope it alludes t….
Vain Art of the Fugue was the only one of my novels to be met with relative public recognition: it was nominated for the Prix Médicis by Alain Robbe-….
The East was no longer a threat to the western world, and when there's nothing to fear we turn our backs, we look elsewhere. Eastern literature is st….
It's true that in Romanian I feel more relaxed, as if I'm wearing slippers...but I came to this decision primarily for other reasons: I had only publ….
Since adolescence I've had a passion for Romantic Fantastique literature, which continued with Expressionism and culminated with the genius of Kafka.….