Caius Dobrescu

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Caius Dobrescu: poet, novelist, critic and professor, Caius Dobrescu teaches literary theory, comparative literature, cultural theory and intellectual history at the Universities of Bucharest and Transylvania at Braşov. He writes about counterculture in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe as well as the global cultural wars between liberalism, radicalism and conservatism. In 2001 as a Fulbright fellow affiliated with the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he conducted an individual research on the cult of violence in modern literature and the birth of terrorist ideologies.

b. 1966, Braşov

1995: Balamuc sau pionierii spaţiului / Madhouse or The Space Pioneers. Fiction. Bucharest: Nemira.

1998: Deadevă,/Ndeed (English trans.) Poetry (experiments in spoken language), Piteşti: Paralela 45.

1998: (Modernitatea ultimă / The Ultimate Modernity. Criticism. Bucharest: Univers.

2001: Inamicul impersonal / The Impersonal Enemy. Criticism. Piteşti: Paralela 45.

2001: Semizei şi rentieri / Demigods and Rent-Seekers. Criticism. Bucharest: Nemira.

2007: Teză de doctorat/ Doctoral Thesis. Fiction. Iaşi: Polirom.

2008: Revoluţia radială / The Radial Revolution. Criticism. Braşov: Transylvania University Press.

English: A Bertrand Russell with a Wagnerian Twist

Español: Un Bertrand Russell de respiración wagneriana

Deutsch: Ein Bertrand Russel Wagner’schen Odems

Français: Un Bertrand Russell À La Respiration Wagnérienne

Italiano: Un Bertrand Russell di respiro wagneriano

About this issue

This July, The Observer Translation Project leaves its usual format to present a special CRISIS ISSUE. Things are tough all over. Hard Times suddenly feels like the book of the moment. The global economic crisis impacts life as we know it, and viewed from Bucharest the effects reverberate in domains that include geo-politics and publishing in Romania and abroad, with the crisis at The Observer Translation Project as an instance of a universal phenomenon. read more...

Translator's Choice

Author: Stelian Tănase
Translated by: Jean Harris

From Maestro: A Melodrama. Episode 7

Emiluţa has an unfortunate thought. She’ll throw herself off the top of the building. Why? What the fuck? Let’s say for the cause of PeaceonEarth, for the slumdogs, Europe, for the lonely. Which is to say she doesn’t have a ghost of a reason. Viva Walachia! The way things stand, if ...

Translator’s Note
Translator’s Note: a synopsis

Author: Ştefan Agopian
Translated by: Ileana Orlich

How I Learned to Read (from Tache de Catifea / The Velvet Man)

The bearded man was the owner of an apothecary shop where he worked with two apprentices. Nobody paid me any mind, so I spent all day in what was supposed to be the shop. I say this because it was a large, dark room full of odors—a mix of smells from everywhere. The room hadn’t been cleaned ...

Translator’s Note
Re: Learning to Read, from Tache de catifea / The Velvet Man

Author: Gabriela Adameşteanu
Translated by: Patrick Camiller

Wasted Morning - Napoleon in Bucharest

“What you’ve got here is heaven on earth,” Vica says as she drops onto the kitchen chair. “But where’s your mother?” “At work,” Gelu lazily replies, leaning sideways against the door. “She’s doing mornings this week, didn’t you know?” He is tall and thin, with unset ...

Author: Petre Ispirescu
Translated by: Jean Harris

Youth Without Age and Life Without Death

It happened once as never before-y, ‘cause if it couldn’t be true, it wouldn’t make a story about the time when the poplar tree made berries and the willow tree broke out in cherries, when bears began to brawl with their tails, and wolf and lamb, unfurling their sails, threw arms around each ...

Translator’s Note
On Petre Ispirescu