Fifth Impossibility

Deported to a concentration camp from 1941 until the end of the war, 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 on the subject of exile, he explores the language and psyche of a writer forced to wander. The pieces move back and forth from the cultural-political landscape of Eastern Europe to the North America of today. There are astute critiques of fellow Romanian and American writers, of their political and cultural stands. 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 a writer and how, after more than twenty-five years in the West, he sees not only the bitterness but also the privilege of exile. These essays – many translated here for the first time – are passionate, lucid and enriching, conveying a profound perspective on our troubled society.