Radu Pavel Gheo

Radu Pavel Gheo
Born (1969-10-03)October 3, 1969
Oraviţa
Occupation novelist, short story writer, essayist, translator (from English)
Nationality Romanian
Period 1993-
Genre Realist, satire, parable, essay
Literary movement Neorealism, Postmodernism

Radu Pavel Gheo (born Pavel Gheorghiță Radu on October 3, 1969) is a Romanian fiction writer and essayist. Gheo is a member of PEN Club from Romania (since 2005) and of the Romanian Writers' Union (since 2003).

Biography

Gheo was born in Oraviţa, Caraş-Severin County. He graduated from the West University of Timișoara, Faculty of Letters, in 1994, and holds a Ph.D. in Philology from the same institution (2014). He taught English language for five years in Timişoara and, later on, in Iași. Between 1999 and 2001 he worked as a radio editor for Radio Iași. Gheo was a member of the Romanian young writers' group CLUB 8 from Iași, together with Constantin Acosmei, Șerban Alexandru, Radu Andriescu, Michael Astner, Emil Brumaru, Mariana Codruţ, Gabriel Horațiu Decuble, Florin Lăzărescu, Dan Lungu, Ovidiu Nimigean, Dan Sociu and Lucian Dan Teodorovici.[1] Afterwards, he lived for a year in the American city of Bellevue, Washington, whence he returned to Timișoara, where he currently lives.

Literary activity

Gheo has published so far several volumes of short stories, essays, and two novels. He is also the author of a play entitled Hold-УП Akbar sau Toti în America (Hold-УП Akbar or Everybody in America). The play has been put on stage by the National Theatre „Mihai Eminescu” from Timișoara, starting July 2007.[2] He has published several hundred essays and studies in some of the major cultural magazines from his country and in some cultural magazines from abroad: Timpul, Dilema (veche), 22, Orizont, Observator cultural, Lettre International, Amphion, Korunk, Wienzeile (Vienna, Austria), Dialogi (Maribor, Slovenia), Sarajevo Notebooks (Sarajevo, Bosnia), Libertatea (Vojvodina, Serbia) Au Sud de l’Est (Paris, France), Lampa (Warsaw, Poland), Herito (Kraków, Poland), Courrier Internationale (France), Cultures d’Europe Centrale (France) etc. He has also been included in several literary anthologies from Romania and abroad, with short stories or essays. As a translator from English, he has translated around twenty volumes, mostly fiction.

2003 essay

Upon his return from the United States in Romania, Gheo published in 2003 Adio, adio, patria mea, cu î din i, cu â din a (approx. Farewell, My Homeland, Farewell...), a description of the United States from an immigrant's perspective, and a book where "the critical eye that demoted Romania also demotes America".[3] The Romanian essayist and literary critic Mircea Iorgulescu appreciated it as "an entirely amazing book in the contemporary Romanian literature... It should compete simultaneously for the title The Book of the Year in many categories: essay, journalism, fiction, even poetry, as long as Gogol’s Dead Souls is a poem".[4]

2010 novel

The topic of immigration is also approached in Gheo's 2010 novel Noapte bună, copii! (Good Night, Children!). The novel deals with the childhood spent in the Romanian Communist regime, where the children's imagination is suffused with the obsession of an idealized Western world. As the obsession grows, the main characters risk their lives in an illegal border crossing.[5] The literary critic Daniel Cristea-Enache defined Noapte bună, copii! as "the novel of a generation",[6] the generation of the so-called "decreţei". The novel was published in 2016 in Italian translation.

Bibliography (Romanian works)

Translations

Titles and awards

References

  1. ↑ "Mircea Iorgulescu, Un grup literar ieşean: Club 8, in 22 magazine, July 2003.
  2. ↑ Geanina Jinaru, Teatru la cumpărături, in Bănățeanul, July 25, 2007.
  3. ↑ C. Rogozanu, Poliromii, in Observator cultural, no. 198, December 2003.
  4. ↑ Mircea Iorgulescu, Din Far East în Far West şi înapoi, in 22 magazine, no. 711, October 2003.
  5. ↑ Bianca Burţa-Cernat, Romanul high-definition, in Observator cultural, no. 528, June 2010.
  6. ↑ Daniel Cristea-Enache, Romanul unei generaţii, in Observator cultural, no. 535, July 2010.
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