Books

Shortlist of Romanian authors whose books you should consider reading (part I)

August 31, 2020

1. Mircea Eliade

Firstly, I chose to mention Eliade. Why? Because, as a high-school student, I thought he was the most interesting Romanian author whose books I have read. With such an astonishing career, Mircea Eliade was one of the most known Romanian religion historians. Most importantly, he was also a philosopher, short novels writer, journalist, essayist, and novelist. As an adept of the literary movement of Modernism, one of the most appreciated books written by him is Maitreyi (“Bengal Nights“). It is a novel based on the diary he had written during his stay in British India. There, he studied philosophy at University of Calcutta. Other significant titles of Eliade’s writings are “Diary of a short-sighted adolescent”, “Mith and reality“, “The Forbidden Forest“ and “With the Gypsy Girls”.

People also know him for adherence to the Legionary Movement. Therefore, this movement influenced him to write “Spiritual Itinerary”, serialized in “Cuvântul” in 1927. People have displayed him for his rejection of liberalism and the modernizing goals of the 1848 Wallachian revolution. Moreover, people have also displayed him for democracy itself, and later for praising Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy.
Mircea Eliade died on 22 April 1986 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

2. Mihail Sebastian

Best known for his career as a playwright, Mihail Sebastian was influenced by French novelists such as Marcel Proust and Jules Renard. His most important creations are the plays “The star without a name“

, “The accident“, and “The Town with Acacia Trees“.
As a jew, he decided to publish a book. In this book, he confessed what it was like to be a Jew in Romania, called “For Two Thousand Years“.

3. Ioana Pârvulescu

Ioana Pârvulescu is a Romanian writer. She studied at the University of Bucharest, where she got a Ph.D. in literature in 1999. In addition, she wrote in the literary jurnal “România Literară”.
As a member of Romanian Writers’ Union, she won the E.U Prize for Literature for her book “Life begins on Friday“. As a result, she wrote “The Innocents”