A stunning translation of one of Romania's foremost authors.
Mircea Cartarescu, born in 1956, is one of Romania's leading novelists and poets. This translation of his 1989 novel Nostalgia, writes Andrei Codrescu, "introduces to English a writer who has always had a place reserved for him in a constellation that includes the Brothers Grimm, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Bruno Schulz, Julio Cortazar, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera, and Milorad Pavic, to mention just a few." Like most of his literary contemporaries of the avant-garde Eighties Generation, his major work has been translated into several European languages, with the notable exception, until now, of English.
Readers opening the pages of Nostalgia should brace themselves for a verbal tidal wave of the imagination that will wash away previous ideas of what a novel is or ought to be. Although each of its five chapters is separate and stands alone, a thematic, even mesmeric harmony finds itself in children's games, the music of the spheres, humankind's primordial myth-making, the origins of the universe, and in the dilapidated tenement blocks of an apocalyptic Bucharest during the years of communist dictatorship.
Cartarescu is one of the great literary voices of Central Europe. He daringly questions our usual way of looking at the world, suggesting that rationalism is merely an attempt to create order. In fact, the world is made up of the nuances of our fantasies -- Olga Tokarczuk, author of Flights
A Danubian Narnia. . . his writing delivers a rainbow-hued riot of fantasy, imagination and invention. . . If you looked for the perfect director to film Nostalgia, a joint effort by Guillermo del Toro and Terry Gilliam might just do the trick -- Boyd Tonkin ― Spectator
Fiendishly clever, devilishly humorous and stunningly ambitious. . . one of Romania's most eminent novelists has finally reached Britain. It's been long overdue -- Miriam Balanescu ― Prospect
Of a rare and wondrous brilliance . . . Julian Semilian's translation of this masterpiece is a heroic achievement -- Paul Bailey ― Literary Review
Cartarescu is not only a sophisticated, compelling storyteller but a first-class wordsmith . . . Between them these stories bring forth a fabulous narrative universe, a place where the ordinary and extraordinary intermingle and miracles are a matter of routine -- Costica Bradatan ― TLS
Visionary and tormented. . . mixes history, autobiography and magic realism. There are hints of Bulgakov as well as an aura of Donald Cammell's and Nicolas Roeg's cult 1970 film Performance; a whirlwind of seedy glamour and despair that is itself a reflection of a nightmarish totalitarian state, as well as a scintillatingly detailed portrait of adolescence and retrospective longing -- Catherine Taylor ― Irish Times
A timeless invitation to dream and embrace the comforting power of personal memory, the only sure bulwark against the effects of totalitarian control. . . Gripping, impassioned, unexpected -- the qualities that the best in literature possesses -- Thomas McGonigle ― Los Angeles Times
If mind-warping literature is your thing, read this book, then read it again -- Christopher Byrd ― San Francisco Chronicle
A bright star on the firmament of European literature ― Le Monde
Creator of a universe that's caught between dream and reality, Cartarescu is a revelation ― El Pais
Romania's leading novelist and poet. . . Cartarescu's phantasmagorical world is similar to Dalí's dreamscapes ― Kirkus
