The Fifth Impossibility: Essays on Exile and Language (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

Manea, Norman

ISBN 10: 0300179952 / ISBN 13: 9780300179958

Published by Yale University Press, 2012

About this Item

Good - Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name - GOOD PAPERBACK Standard-sized.

Seller Inventory # M0300179952Z3

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Fifth Impossibility: Essays on Exile and Language (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300179952
• ISBN 13: 9780300179958
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

A passionate exploration of language, censorship, and exile by the celebrated Romanian writer Norman Manea
 
“Manea demonstrates that he is an indispensable analyst of what it means to be a Romanian, and a Romanian Jew, and a writer, under fascism and communism.”—David Mikics, New Republic
 
Deported to a concentration camp from 1941 until the end of World War II, Norman Manea again left his native Romania in 1986 to escape the Ceausescu regime. He now lives in New York. In this selection of essays, he explores the language and psyche of the exiled writer.
 
Among pieces on the cultural-political landscape of Eastern Europe and on the North America of today, there are astute critiques of fellow Romanian and American writers. Manea answers essential questions on censorship and on linguistic roots. He unravels the relationship of the mother tongue to the difficulties of translation. Above all, he describes what homelessness means for the writer.
 
These essays—many translated here for the first time—are passionate, lucid, and enriching, conveying a profound perspective on our troubled society.

About the Author

Norman Manea is Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer-in-residence at Bard College. Deported from his native Romania to a Ukrainian concentration camp during World War Two, he was again forced to leave Romania in 1986, no longer safe under an intolerant Communist dictatorship. Since arriving in the West he has received many important awards, including, in 2016, Romania’s highest distinction, the the Presidential Order "The Romanian Star" in the highest level, of Great Officer. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City.