The guest of the November 4, 2020 edition of our Feraru Conferences online series was novelist, essayist, and Bard College Professor Emeritus NORMAN MANEA, one of the most celebrated Romanian authors of the past decades and the indispensable moral compass in a world going astray. Looking back to a long and eventful life, the Holocaust survivor and best-seller writer shared, with the trademark ironical, unassuming wisdom, the findings of a lifetime search of truth, beauty, and justice. Enjoy watching!
Romanian-American writer Norman Manea is Francis Flournoy Professor Emeritus in European Studies and Culture and Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College, New York and author of a long series of novels, volumes of short fiction, and essays. Originally written in Romanian and published in 30 languages, the following titles are also available in English: October Eight O’Clock (short fiction, 1992), On Clowns: The Dictator and the Artist (essays, 1992), Compulsory Happiness (novellas, 1993), The Black Envelope (novel, 1995), The Lair (novel, 2012), The Fifth Impossibility (essays, 2012), The Hooligan’s Return (novel, 2003; 2nd edition, 2013), Settling My Accounts Before I Go Away. An Interview with Saul Bellow (2013), Paradise Found: An Interview with Hannes Stein (2013), Captives (2015).
Norman Manea was granted, among others, The Guggenheim Fellowship (1992), The McArthur Fellowship (1993), The National Jewish Book Award (1993), The New York Public Library Literary Lion Medal (1993), The Nonino International Prize for “Opera Omnia” (2002), Napoli Prize for Fiction (2004), Prix Médicis Étranger (2006), Nelly Sachs Prize (2011), The National Prize for Literature awarded by the Romanian Writers’ Union (2012), the FIL Grand Prize for Literature in Romance Languages (2016), and the Alianța Arts and Letters Award (2018). He is a member of Berlin Academy of Art (Germany, 2006), a honorary member of The Royal Society of Literature (United Kingdom, 2011), and was awarded the title Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 2009), the Romanian “Cultural Merit” Order in the rank of Commander (2006), and the National Order “Star of Romania” in the rank of Grand Officer (2016).