Name: Dan Lungu

Date of birth: 15 September 1969, Botoşani county, Romania

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Marital status: married with two children

Occupation:

• Doctor of Sociology, Lecturer in the Sociology Department of Al. I. Cuza University, Jassy

• Editor for “Au Sud de l’Est” magazine (Paris)

Education:

• Graduate of the Philosophy Faculty, Sociology-Political Studies Section, 1995; Doctorate in Sociology, 2001; post-doctoral studies at the Sorbonne, 2005-2006

Published books:

• Cum să uiţi o femeie / How to Forget a Woman (novel),(novel) , Polirom: Jassy, 2009
  
  
• Sînt o babă communistă / I’m a Communist Biddy (novel), Polirom: Jassy, 2007 (currently being adapted for the big screen; director – Stere Gulea, screenwriter – Lucian Dan Teodorovici)
  
  
• Băieti de gască / Good Guys (short prose), Polirom: Jassy, 2005
  
  
• Raiul găinilor (fals roman de zvonuri si mistere) / Hens’ Heaven: Faux Novel of Rumours and Mysteries, Polirom: Jassy, 2004
  
  
• Constructia identitătii într-o societate totalitară. O cercetare sociologică asupra scriitorilor / The Construction of Identity in a Totalitarian Society: A Sociological Investigation into Writers, Junimea: Jassy, 2004
  
  
• Nuntă la parter / Ground Floor Wedding (plays), Versus: Jassy, 2003
  
  
• Proză cu amănuntul / Retail Prose (short prose) Cronica: Jassy, 2003; Polirom: Jassy, 2008
  
  

Translated books :

• Le paradis des poules. Faux roman de rumeurs et de mysteres, Editions Jaqueline Chambon, 2005

• Das Hühnerparadies, Residenz Verlag, 2007, Austria

• Klasse Typen, Drava Verlag, 2007, Austria

• Kokosji Raj, Ed. Apokalipsa, 2007, Slovenia

• Je suis une vieille coco, Editions Jaqueline Chambon / Actes Sud, 2008, France

• Egy komcsy nya nya vagyok, Ed. Jelenkor, 2008, Hungary

• Pas question de Dracula... (with Florin Lăzărescu and Lucian Dan Teodorovici), Ed. Non Lieu, France

• Die rote Babuschka, Residenz Verlag, 2009, Austria

• Jestem komunistyczną babą!, Ed. Czarne, Poland

• !Soy un vejestorio comunista!, Ed. Pre-Textos, Spain

• Sono una vecchia comunista!, Gruppo Editoriale Zonza, Italy

• Il paradiso delle galline (falso romanzo di rumori e misteri), Manni Editori, Italy

• ΠΕΖΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ ΛΙΑΝΙΚΑ, Ed. Antonios Stamoulis, Greece

• Червена бабичка съм!, Ed. Faber Print Ltd., Bulgaria (in press)

• Komünist Bir Kocakarıyım, Ed. Apollon Yayıncılık, Turkey

• El paraíso de las gallinas (Falsa novela de rumores y misterios),Icaria Editorial, Spain (in press)

Short prose:

• La révolution des cure-dents, in the volume Les belles étrangeres. 12 écrivains roumains, Editions L’Inventaire, 2005, France

• Reise durch eine Postkarte in the volume Grenzverkehr. Literarische Streifüge zwischen Ost und West, 2005, Editions Drava, Klangenfurt/Celovec, Austria

• The seven o’clock wife in Plural magazine, no. 1/2005 (“Freaks and Outlaws”), Romania

• Beszélgetés Fészerrel in A hét Hungarian-language magazine, no. 3 (46)/2005, Romania

• Il viaggio in I percorsi di griselda magazine, no. 2/2003, Italy

• Intimités in Virages magazine, no. 20, winter 2003, Canada

• Jouer a l’obscurité in Virages magazine, no. 16, winter 2002, Canada

• Die Kollekte aus Spucke in Wienzeile magazine, no. 1/2001, Austria

Artistic and cultural experience:

• 2009 - Public reading in Jerusalem Book Fair, Leipzig Book Fair, Torino Book Fair, Berlin (Literaturwerkstatt), Leipzig (Café Puschkin), Thessaloniki Book Faire, Casablanca (Hassan II University), Rabat (High School Rene Descartes and French Cultural Institute), Tübingen (Tübinger Bücherfest), Freiburg (Kino Alter Bahnhof Wiehre), Madrid (Circulo de Bellas Artes), Vienna (Hauptbücherei am Gürtel), Istanbul (Galatasaray University), Düsseldorf (Orangerie Schloss Benrath). Participant at Vilenica International Literary Festival and Istanbul Tanpınar Literature Festival

• 2008 - Public reading in Berlin (Literarische Colloquium), Graz Literaturhaus, Budapest Book Fair, Barcelona Book Fair, Stuttgart Volksuniversiteit. Participant at Cognac Literary Festival, Sete Literary Festival, Caen Literary Festival (Insolite Roumanie)

• 2007 -Writer in residence at the Marguerite Yourcenar Villa, France. Public reading in Vienna (Volkstheater), Lofer, Paris (Maison d’Europe et d’Orient and the Romanian Cultural Institute), Zurich Literaturhaus, Basel Book Fair, Leipzig Book Fair, Vienna Romanian Cultural Institute

• 2006 –Invited by the Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna, in partnership with KulturKontakt, to take part in the Niederoesterreich Book Week in Wiener Neustadt

• 2005 –Participant in the Les Belles Etrangeres Roumanie events held in Paris, 14-26 November 2005 (along with writers Gabriela Adamesteanu, Stefan Agopian, Ana Blandiana, Mircea Cărtărescu, Gheorghe Crăciun, Letitia Ilea, Ion Muresan, Marta Petreu, Simona Popescu, Cecilia Stefanescu, and Vlad Zografi)

• 2004 – Writer in residence, Vienna, July-August, with a grant provided by KulturKontakt, Austria; public readings at the Romanian Cultural Centre in Vienna

• 2001–2003 - Chairman of the public readings organised by Club 8 in collaboration with the Goethe Zentrum, Jassy

• 2001 – 2002 - Editor-in-chief of Timpul cultural magazine

• 2001 –Invited to give public readings at the Literaturhaus (Salzburg) and the Alteschmide (Vienna)

• 1998 –Participant at Pontes-98, Meeting of Young European Writers (Krk, Croatia)

• 1997 – 2000 - Collaborating editor on Monitorul de Iasi newspaper, responsible for the Arts Page

• 1996 – Founder of Club-8

• 1995 – 1997 – Editor of the Children’s Page of Sotron magazine, Botoşani

Literary awards:

• Double nominated at Jean Monnet European Literature Prize (2008, France)

• Prize of the city of Jassy for Literary Activity (2007)

• Jassy Branch of the Union of Romanian Writers Award for Prose (2005)

• First Prize in the Rue des poetes competition, Lille, France (2003)

• Goethe Zentrum Prize for Promotion of Originality, as representative of Club-8 (2001)

• Dobrogea Branch of the Union of Romanian Writers Award for Prose Debut (1999)

• Nemira Editions Award for Short Prose (1997)

• Junimea Society Award for Literary Activity in 1993

Membership of professional associations:

2002 – Member of the Union of Romanian Writers

Press:

“His dryly-funny tapestry of mores is marked by sparkling metaphors and a Romanesque temperament.”

(Kultur SPIEGEL, Katrin Hillgruber)

“Dan Lungu allows his heroes to indulge in wild fantasies, to fib copiously, to utter profanity unabashedly; he makes them repositories of a rich stock of anecdotes, apparently generated by the bitter school of dictatorship. There’s a lot to laugh about, yet with one eye you’ll be crying...”

(NZZ, Ilma Rakusa)

“The idea of this drinking place is in itself brilliant – in a tractor wreck dumped in Ticu Zidaru’s garden, patrons drink anything containing a percentage of alcohol and not conducive to instant death. It is a men’s paradise and simultaneously a point for stocking up on gossip, a micro-universe of postcommunistic conscience: children play among garbage piles, men fight for a place in the take-the-money-and-run society, women rehearse their own deaths or knit till they keel over. All to the accompaniment of cackling hens.”

(KURIER, Caro Wiesauer)

“Dan Lungu [...] jumps on the international literary wagon with his own brand of high-quality, richly-satirical prose...”

(WIENER ZEITUNG)

“Lungu managed to create a whole social universe out a backstreet neighborhood and its dwellers... In that world peasant mentality and petty bourgeois conscience hold equal sway.”

(FREITAG, Jan Koneffke)

“I'm going to read this novel over and over again... That's what genuine literature should be like. Exquisite! Congratulations! Whoever selected this author was truly inspired.”

(Evelyn Grill)

“Dan Lungu's Hens’ Heaven is a book in a million. Halfway through Chapter two I was already in stitches.” (Jan Cornelius)

“Dan Lungu offers us splendid prose about the hidden frissons of everyday life. It is admirably written, half in the tone of an ironic poem, half in the tone of Joycean epic.” (Radu G. Teposu)

“With the verve of a great storyteller, Dan Lungu makes me see him as a Creangă schooled in sociology, as elevated but at the same time a peddler of low talk coupled with scintillating irony and humour, as an intellectual sceptic. You can take my word for it, but even better would be to see for yourselves.” (Cristian Teodorescu)

“I unreservedly enjoyed Hens’ Heaven. It is a superb book.” (Stefan Agopian)

“Reading Dan Lungu is like looking at a fireworks display. The dazzling intelligence, sagacity and sometimes maliciousness evident in his understanding of the human soul, as well as his sober, muscular lyricism, are engaging.” (Alex. Stefanescu)

“In Hens’ Heaven, the author constructs an epic metaphor entirely comparable to that offered by the films of Emir Kusturica, in his memorable vision of the Underground.” (Mircea Iorgulescu)

“Dan Lungu is a young writer of indisputable talent.” (Daniel Cristea Enache)

“Belonging to the so-called decrees generation, Dan Lungu is a calm, professional and mature prose writer, without the excesses or desire to shock found in some of his younger contemporaries.” (Paul Cernat)

“Herein resides Dan Lungu’s originality: his work is so close to reality that it becomes reality itself, captured, wrenched from the magma of the quotidian using instruments of remarkable delicacy. The precision of the sociologist can, of course, be felt, but the talent of a sociological ear is just one of many ingredients.” (Luminita Marcu)

“Dan Lungu has abandoned the platoon of ‘promising youth’ and is already an important writer, whose books have, as was only natural, already crossed the border out of Romania.” (Catalin Sturza)

“He strikes more powerfully than it might seem at first glance. His scalpel insidiously cuts beneath the mask of detached narrative, defying literary trends. Perhaps this is what we have been in need of: prose writers who see and hear, who X-ray a world that is out of joint.” (Bogdan-Alexandru Stanescu)

“He has the sure hand of a true writer: he is a master of the word, phrase and construction; he gives no verdicts; he doesn’t leave the stitches showing. (…) Dan Lungu is a genuine prose writer.” (Mircea A. Diaconu)