Marin Sorescu
Marin Sorescu (Romanian pronunciation: [maˈrin soˈresku]; February 29, 1936 - December 8, 1996) was a Romanian poet, playwright, and novelist.
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[edit] Biography
Born to a family of farmworkers[1] in Bulzeşti, Dolj County, Sorescu graduated from the primary school in his home village. After that he went to the Buzesti Brothers High School in Craiova, after which he was transferred to the Predeal Military School. His final education was at the University of Iaşi, where, in 1960, he graduated with a degree in modern languages. His first book, a collection of parodies in 1964 entitled Singur printre poeţi ("Alone Among Poets"), was widely discussed. He himself called them "sarcastic and awkward". Ten volumes of poetry and prose followed, having a very rapid ascension in the world of literary, as a poet, novelist, playwright, essayist. He grew so popular that his readings were held in football stadiums.[2]
On his poetry, Sorescu said, with characteristic irony: "Just as I can't give up smoking because I don't smoke, I can't give up writing because I have no talent." He often claimed a sense of alienation, saying "the spoken word is a crossed frontier. By the act of saying something, I fail to say many other things." On censorship, he said, after his last, post-1989 Revolution volumes were delayed, "we have won our freedom, so I mustn't complain. O censors, where are you now?"
Sorescu's collection of Censored Poems comprised poems could not be published until the end of the Nicolae Ceauşescu Communist dictatorship; of these, the best known is House under surveillance.
He disappointed some of his admirers by allowing himself to be made Minister of Culture by the unpopular National Salvation Front government between 1993 and 1995.
Ill with cirrhosis and hepatitis, he died from a heart attack at the Elias Hospital in Bucharest.
[edit] Awards
- Romanian Academy prize, 1968, 1977
- The Gold Medal for Poetry "Napoli ospite", Italy, 1970
- The Prize of the Romanian Academy for Drama, 1970
- "Le Muse", granted by Accademie delle Muse, Florence, 1978
- The International Poetry Prize "Fernado Riello", Madrid, Spain, 1983
- The International Herder Prize, granted by the University of Vienna in 1991 for his entire activity
- Romanian Writers' Union prize (6 times, for poetry, drama, and literary criticism)
He was also nominated to the Nobel Prize in Literature.
[edit] Affiliations
- 1971 - Fellow, International Writing Program, University of Iowa
- 1983 - Member of Mallarmé Academy, Paris
- 1992 - Member of the Romanian Academy
- 1955- Alumnus of Frații Buzești High School
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Hands Behind My Back: Selected Poems, trans. Gabriela Dragnea, Adriana Varga, & Stuart Friebert (Oberlin College Press, 1991). ISBN 0-932440-58-4
- The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, edited by J.D. McClatchy, pg. 219.
[edit] Notes
- ^ for non-Romanians speakers that may mean pretty poor people that earned their day to day living by working some plots
- ^ pretty surrealist for a person living in a non-Communist system. Communists used to regard highly the art that was not obviously critical (for a British person would be something at least above the level at which Wayne Rooney can still make a sense of it), for a person who makes a sense of Seamus Heaney and company higher or equal
