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The first event in the LEON FERARU CONFERENCES online series, one of our permanent programs that provides a voice to the rich and diverse Romanian expertise of all things American, took place on April 15, 2020. We began these weekly virtual exchanges with an exploration of anti- and pro-American attitudes and their cultural manifestations in the company of writer and academic RADU VANCU, the President of PEN Romania.
Named in honor of the unsung founder of professional Romanian cultural diplomacy in the United States, this series of conversations with well-known historians, social scientists, international relations specialists, and cultural critics, aims at illuminating the Romanian contributions to topics relevant on both sides of the Atlantic and at stimulating the Romanian-American dialogue.
RADU VANCU (born July 13, 1978) is a poet, translator, academic, journalist, cultural critic and activist, and the President of PEN Romania. He is one of the most active, versatile, and influential authors on Romanian, and increasingly international, literary scene. A prodigious polygraph, at home in poetry, autobiographical prose, children literature, academic research and essay, he authored more than 13 books among which Letters to Camelia(Epistole pentru Camelia, Imago, 2002), Biographia litteraria (Vinea, 2006), The Happy Monster (Monstrul fericit, Cartier, 2009), Sebastian in Dreams (Sebastian în vis, Tracus Arte, 2010), The Blooming Rope (Frânghia înflorită, Casa de editură Max Blecher, 2012), 4 A.M. Domestic Cantos (Cantosuri domestice, Casa de editură Max Blecher, 2015); Mircea Ivănescu: The Poetry of Absolute Discretion (Mircea Ivănescu: Poezia discreției absolute, Vinea, 2007; 2nd edition, ART, 2015), Eminescu: Three Essays (Eminescu: Trei eseuri, InfoArt Media–Argonaut, 2011), The Mistique of Poetry: Readings in Contemporary Literature (Mistica poeziei: Lecturi în literatura contemporană, Muzeul Literaturii Române, 2013), Vertebrate Romania (România vertebrată, Adenium, 2016). His books, which brought him several national and international prizes, have been widely translated all over the world. Radu Vancu teaches at the “Lucian Blaga” University in Sibiu and works as an editor for Timpul, Transilvania and Poesis International magazines. He is one of the most competent observers of the American phenomenon not least as the exceptional translator in Romanian of Ezra Pound and John Berryman.