Mircea Cărtărescu
Mircea Cărtărescu , pronunciation ˈmirt͡ʃe̯a kərtəˈresku , (born June 1, 1956 in Bucharest ) is a Romanian writer.
Life
Mircea Cărtărescu comes from a poor background and grew up in Bucharest. After studying philology and working for several years as a secondary school teacher, Cărtărescu worked as a lecturer for Romanian language and literature at the University of Bucharest. Until 1989 his literary preference was exclusively poetry. The volume of poetry Faruri, vitrine, fotografii (“headlights, shop windows, light images”) won him the award of the Romanian Writers' Union in 1980. Over the next twenty years, Cărtărescu published Poeme de amor (“Love poems”), Totul (“The Whole”), Levantul (“Levante”), Dragostea (“The Love”), Dublu CD (“Double CD”) and50 sonnets ("50 sonnets"). He himself considers the untranslated - and, as he says, untranslatable - verse epic Levantul to be his “best book”. Cărtărescu is now recognized in the West as one of the most important representatives of Romanian postmodernism .
After many years of working as a journalist for the most important literary journals in Romania, Cărtărescu made an important contribution as a literary critic to the discussion about the renewal of (Romanian) literature: his dissertation Postmodernismul românesc (“The Romanian Postmodernism”) is an analysis of the Romanian contemporary literature.
Since 1978 he has published volumes of poetry and short stories. The novel Die Wissenden , published in German in 2007, is the first part of a trilogy that is originally called Orbitor . The third part was published in Romania in autumn 2007.
In 2008 Suhrkamp also published his short stories “Why we love women”, the translation of the Romanian bestseller from 2005 ( De ce iubim femeile , Humanitas).
The House of World Cultures awarded Cărtărescu the International Literature Prize in 2012 for his novel The Body . With Der Körper , the author succeeded in creating a brilliant novel and linguistically electrifying work of art of rare intensity and luminosity. The self-exploration of the first-person narrator Mircea is becoming an exploration of the world and expands a literary networked thinking, bringing together the smallest and largest elements of existence, interweaving thinking and speaking in neural metaphors with the cosmos , judged the jury.
Works (selection)
- Nostalgia . Translated from Romanian by Gerhardt Csejka . Verlag Volk und Welt , Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-353-01094-7 .
- Self-portrait in a match flame . Poems. Translated from Romanian by Gerhardt Csejka. DAAD Berlin Artists Program , Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89357-099-3 .
- Why we love women . Stories. From the Romanian by Ernest Wichner . Suhrkamp Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-41961-8 .
- Travesty . From the Romanian by Ernest Wichner. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-42179-6 .
- The beautiful strangers . Stories. From the Romanian by Ernest Wichner. Zsolnay Verlag , Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-552-05780-7 .
- Solenoid . Novel. From the Romanian by Ernest Wichner. Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2019, ISBN 978-3-552-05948-1 .
Orbitor trilogy:
- Those who know . 1st chapter. Translated from Romanian by Gerhardt Csejka. Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-552-05406-6 .
- The body . Part 2. Translated from the Romanian by Gerhardt Csejka and Ferdinand Leopold . Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-552-05504-9 .
- The wings . 3rd part. From the Romanian by Ferdinand Leopold. Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-552-05689-3 .
Awards, honors
- 1980: Romanian Writers' Association Prize
- 1989: Prize of the Romanian Academy
- 1990: Prize of the Romanian Writers' Association, prizes from the literary magazines Flacăra , Ateneu , Tomis and Cuvântul
- 1992: Le Rêve nominated for: Prix Médicis , Prix Union Latine , Le meilleur livre étranger
- 1994: Romanian Writers Union Prize, ASPRO Prize, Moldovan Writers Association Prize
- 1996: ASPRO Prize, prizes from the literary magazines Flacăra , Ateneu , Tomis and Cuvântul
- 1997: Awards from the literary magazines Flacăra , Ateneu , Tomis and Cuvântul
- 1999: French translation by Orbitor nominated for the French Prix Union Latine
- 2000: Prize of the Romanian Writers' Association
- 2002: ASPRO Prize, AER Prize
- 2006: Order for cultural merit in the rank of Grand Officer (Ordinul "Meritul cultural" în grad de mare ofițer), awarded by the President of Romania
- 2012: International Literature Prize - House of World Cultures
- 2013: Spycher: Leuk Literature Prize with Michael Roes
- 2015: Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding for his Orbitor romance trilogy
- 2015: Austrian State Prize for European Literature
- 2016: Premio Gregor von Rezzori for The Body
- 2018: Thomas Mann Prize
- 2018: Premio Formentor de las Letras
Web links
- Literature by and about Mircea Cărtărescu in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography and reviews of works by Mircea Cărtărescu at perlentaucher.de
- In the uterus of the skull. Mircea Cărtărescus Orbitor Trilogy . Contribution by Aléa Torik to literaturkritik.de
- February 12, 2017 (FAZ.net): Guest post ( We are to blame that Europe is shaking ) on protests in Romania
Individual references, sources
- ↑ "The world is real poetry", Interview with Mircea Cartarescu, Cargo # 4 table of contents , 2009, p. 42
- ^ Dictionarul Scriitorilor Români, Ed. Fundatiei Culturale Române, Bucuresti, 1995, vol. 1, pp. 527-530
- ↑ Literature supplement of the Süddeutsche Zeitung November 20, 2007
- ^ House of the World of Cultures , accessed on May 23, 2012.
- ↑ zeit.de December 17, 2019 / Burkhard Müller : Review
- ↑ Awards: Spycher: Leuk Literature Prize to Mircea Cărtărescu and Michael Roes. In: boersenblatt.net. web.archive.org, June 24, 2013, archived from the original on May 2, 2014 ; accessed on November 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Mircea Cărtărescu was honored in Florence , boersenblatt.net, June 15, 2016, accessed on June 15, 2016
- ↑ Mircea Cartarescu receives Thomas Mann Prize 2018 ( Memento from February 13, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Premio Formentor for Mircea Cartarescu , boersenblatt.net, published and accessed on April 10, 2018
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Cărtărescu, Mircea |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Romanian writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | June 1, 1956 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Bucharest |