Romanian Literature As World Literature

Approaching Romanian literature as world literature, this book is a critical-theoretical manifesto that places its object at the crossroads of empires, regions, and influences and draws conclusions whose relevance extends beyond the Romanian, Romance, and East European cultural systems. This “intersectional” revisiting of Romanian literature is organized into three parts. Opening with a fresh look at the literary ideology of Romania's “national poet,” Mihai Eminescu, part I dwells primarily on literary-cultural history as process and discipline. Here, the focus is on cross-cultural mimesis, the role of strategic imitation in the production of a distinct literature in modern Romania, and the shortcomings marking traditional literary historiography's handling of these issues. Part II examines the ethno-linguistic and territorial complexity of Romanian literatures or “Romanian literature in the plural.” Part III takes up the trans-systemic rise of Romanian, Jewish Romanian, and Romanian-European avant-garde and modernism, Socialist Realism, exile and émigré literature, and translation.

Mircea Martin is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Literary Studies at the University of Bucharest, Romania, and a prominent figure of post-World War II East European literary criticism, theory, and comparative studies. A corresponding member of the Romanian Academy, he is Editor-in-Chief of Euresis: Romanian Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies and president of the Romanian Association of General and Comparative Literature. His latest book is Radicalism and Nuance (2015).

Christian Moraru is Class of 1949 Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English at University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is the author and editor of a number of books, including Cosmodernism: American Narrative, Late Globalization, and the New Cultural Imaginary (2011) and Reading for the Planet: Toward a Geomethodology (2015).

Andrei Terian is Dean of Faculty of Letters and Arts and Professor of Romanian Literature in the Department of Romance Studies of Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania. He is also a senior researcher with the G. Calinescu Institute of Literary History and Theory of the Romanian Academy. His latest books include the co-authored reference series General Dictionary of Romanian Literature (7 volumes, 2004-2009) and Chronology of Romanian Literary Life: 1944-1964 (10 volumes, 2010-2013).