The Fifth Impossibility: Essays on Exile and Language

Description

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, 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. Contents Acknowledgments Part I Exile Part II. From One Shore To Another A Friend In Berlin Empty Theaters? Writers And The Great Beast The Incompatibilities On Clowns: The Dictator And The Artist Happy Guilt Blasphemy And Carnival Cioran Through Romanian Eyes: A Half Century Of The NRF In Bucharest Berenger At Bard Made In Romania An Exile On September 11 And After The Walser Debate Beyond The Mountains Some Thoughts On Saul Bellow A Stroll With Nathan The Exiled Language Casa Minima Monuments Of Shame: Twenty Years After The Berlin Wall Ephemeridae The Dada Capital Of Exiles Part III The Fifth Impossibility Index