Dan Lungu (; born September 15, 1969) is a Romanian novelist, short story writer, poet and dramatist, also known as a literary theorist and sociologist. The recipient of critical acclaim for his short story volume Cheta la flegmă ("Quest for Phlegm") and his novels Raiul găinilor ("Chicken Paradise") and Sînt o babă comunistă! ("I'm a Communist Biddy!"), he is also one of the most successful authors to have emerged in post-1990 Romanian literature. Lungu's literary universe, which mainly comprises "microsocial" images of life under the communist regime and during the subsequent transitional period, bridges a form of Neorealism with Postmodernism. Often included among a group of authors who signed their first major contracts with Polirom publishing house, he is also seen as a distinctive voice from his adoptive provincial city of Iași.
A lecturer at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Iași, and former editor in chief of Timpul newspaper, Dan Lungu is also the noted author and co-author of essays and sociological research into everyday life under communist rule, scientific preoccupations which share similarities with his work in fiction. His main interests in the area of historical research include the feminine experience of totalitarian rule, the connection between official propaganda and the actual lives of working class members, and the development of cultural attitudes in relation to communist censorship.
Biography Born in Botoșani city into a Romanian Orthodox family, Ovidiu Șimonca, " 'Să-ți amintești de o femeie, ca s-o uiți' (interview with Dan Lungu)", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 469, April 2009 Lungu has been described as one of the decreței, or children of the baby boom imposed by the communist ban on abortion. Paul Cernat, "Dan Lungu, multilateral dezvoltat", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 218, April 2004 He completed his education in Iași, at the local university's Sociology Department, while pursuing interests in track and field, as well as Go. "Top 50. Cei mai sexy intelectuali: 46 - Dan Lungu" , in Academia Cațavencu, March 5, 2009 Having received his Ph.D. with a thesis on identity formation, Alexandre Fillon, "Spécial Roumanie. Lungu, un sociologue dans le poulailler" , in Lire, November 2005 he later pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of Paris.
Lungu developed a passion for writing from a young age, but debuted in literature only in the early 1990s. In 1996, he and several other Iași-based authors founded the literary society Club 8, Șerban Axinte, "Drama Emiliei Apostoae, dincolo de ficțiune", in Tribuna, Nr. 117/2007 Alina Purcaru, "Dan Lungu: 'La noi, scriitorul se comportă ca o găină cu ou de aur' ", in Cotidianul, February 27, 2009 and he consequently came to be seen as its main theorist. Among those who frequented the circle during the following years were authors of various schools, such as Constantin Acosmei, Șerban Alexandru, Radu Andriescu, Michael Astner, Emil Brumaru, Mariana Codruț, Gabriel Horațiu Decuble, Radu Pavel Gheo, Florin Lăzărescu, Ovidiu Nimigean, Antonio Patraș, Dan Sociu and Lucian Dan Teodorovici.
The first volume bearing Lungu's signature saw print with Editura Junimea in 1996: a poetry collection, it carried the title Muchii ("Edges"). His stories, including Buldozeristul ("The Bulldozer Operator"), winner of the Editura Nemira prize for 1997, saw print in various venues during the late 1990s. Costi Rogozanu, "Dan Lungu, Cheta la flegmă", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 1, February 2000 Lungu also debuted as a dramatist, his work being included in two anthologies of young Romanian theater. The first among these writings is the 1995 ("A Lesson. Or Something like That"), first performed in 2002 by Bucharest's Green Hours fringe theater under the name of Cu cuțitul la os ("A Knife Cut to the Bone"); the second such text, published in 1996, was called Vinovatul să facă un pas înainte ("Will the Guilty Man Take One Step Forward"). Having made his editorial debut in short story with the 1999 collection Cheta la flegmă, he regularly published new works of fiction and cultural analysis over the following years. Between 2001 and 2002, he took over as editor in chief of Timpul.
In 2003, Lungu published three books of essays on literary theory and microsociology, titled respectively Povestirile vieții. Teorie și documente ("Life Stories. Theories and Documents"), Construcția identității într-o societate totalitară. O cercetare sociologică asupra scriitorilor ("The Construction of Identity in a Totalitarian Society. A Sociological Study on Writers") and Cartografii în tranziție. Eseuri de sociologia artei și literaturii ("Transitional Cartographies. Essays of Art and Literary Sociology"). Also that year came a second work in drama, Nuntă la parter ("Wedding on the Ground Floor"), and a reprint of Cheta la flegmă under the title of Proză cu amănuntul ("Retail Prose"), which also featured a dossier of critical commentary from all sides of the literary scene and an account of his visit to Transnistria, a breakaway region of Romania's neighbor Moldova, governed as an unrecognized state. Cosmin Ciotloș, "La închiderea ediției" , in România Literară, Nr. 27/2008 They were followed in 2004 by the novel Raiul găinilor. A second volume of short stories, titled Băieți de gașcă (Romanian for both "Boys in a Gang" and "Good Fellows"), saw print in 2005. After joining fellow Club 8 member Gheo in authoring a study of social history and microsociology, investigating impact of communist rule on Romanian women, published in 2008 as Tovarășe de drum. Experiența feminină în comunism ("Female Fellow Travelers. Female Experience under Communism"), Lungu returned to fiction with the 2009 novel Cum să uiți o femeie ("How to Forget a Woman").
A resident of Iași, Dan Lungu is married and the father of two. One of the first authors from the post-Revolution period to collect a steady profit from literary contributions, Marius Chivu, "Dragoste & pocăință", in Dilema Veche, Vol. VI, Nr. 268, April 2009 he invested his money into a chalet on the outskirts of Iași. He visited France in 2005, invited by the Belles Etrangères cultural exchange program, and, in 2007, returned as a Writer-in-Residence at the Villa Mont Noir, Marguerite Yourcenar's birthplace. He was twice nominated for the European Commission's Jean Monnet Award for Literature in 2008. The target of much public interest, Sînt o babă comunistă! was considered for a film adaptation by Romanian director Stere Gulea. Octavian Soviany, "Un studiu de caz", in Tribuna, Nr. 133/2008
As of 2009, Lungu's work had been translated into nine languages, including a critically acclaimed French-language version of Raiul găinilor (Le paradis des poules, Éditions Jacqueline Chambon, 2005). Cosmin Ciotloș, "Incapacitatea acomodării" , in România Literară, Nr. 20/2007 Andrei Terian, "Momeala povestitorului", in Ziarul Financiar, September 7, 2007 In its Spanish translation, published in 2009, Sînt o babă comunistă! was included by El País daily in a "best of" chart for humorous literature. Jan Cornelius, "Râsul lumii" , in Revista 22, Nr. 1078 Also in 2009, a chart compiled by the satirical and lifestyle magazine Academia Cațavencu ranked Lungu 46th among the "50 sexiest Romanian intellectuals". During the 2016 parliamentary election, Lungu ran for and won a seat in the Romanian Senate on the lists of the Save Romania Union. He subsequently left his prior position as director of the Museum of Romanian Literature. "Scriitorul ieșean Dan Lungu va candida pe listele USR la alegerile parlamentare", in Adevărul, October 21, 2016 Vlad Rotaru, "Noi șefi la Aeroportul Iași și la Muzeul Literaturii", in Bună ziua Iași, December 22, 2016
Style
Context Ever since his debut in prose, Dan Lungu has drawn attention as a leading figure among a generational wave of prose writers, most of whom published their work with Polirom. Bianca Burța-Cernat, "Cum mai stăm cu proza românească?" (I), in Observator Cultural, Nr. 360, February 2007 Cristina Chevereșan, "Generația-electroșoc" , in România Literară, Nr. 34/2006 Within the Polirom collection, which primarily comprises autofictional works, Lungu's contribution is judged by critic Bianca Burța-Cernat to have been among the "good/interesting/well-written" category. She believes him to be of the same rank as Cezar Paul-Bădescu, Victoria Comnea, Radu Pavel Gheo, Ana Maria Sandu, Cecilia Ștefănescu and Lucian Dan Teodorovici, but below the "very good" category of Petre Barbu, T. O. Bobe, Filip Florian, Florin Lăzărescu, Sorin Stoica and Bogdan Suceavă.
The authentic streak of Lungu's narratives was highlighted by Mihaela Ursa, a literary reviewer for Apostrof magazine, who claimed: "With Dan Lungu, and not just with him, our literature seems to have fortunately parted with the complexes of the genius and that of the masterpiece, moving back closer to the reader." Mihaela Ursa, "Baba comunistă c'est moi!" , in Apostrof, Nr. 6/2007 Poet and critic Octavian Soviany notes: "Dan Lungu refuses [...] the monarchic perspective of the demiurge-novelist who always gazes on the world from above [...], for he treats his characters 'from one equal to another', places himself among them, advancing a vision 'from within' which confers upon the narrative some extra authenticity and naturalness." Also according to Soviany, Dan Lungu's prose is connected to "the great Balzacian tradition" and "the masters of the verist short story". Similarly, literary critic Daniel Cristea-Enache argues that Lungu is separated from his generation by the understanding that prose is "in large measure written not for oneself, but for another. For others, the more of them the better." Daniel Cristea-Enache, "Marea conciliere" , in România Literară, Nr. 33/2007 Researcher Cristina Chevereșan sees a special link between the works of Lungu, Florian and Stoica, "epics of life lived in the often suffocating circle of a collectivity as scanty and organically welded as it is oppressive".
In its immediate Romanian context, Lungu's work has occasionally been ranked among "recovery literature" pieces—diverse works which, in the post-censorship era, provide retrospective testimonies or analytical overviews of the communist period. This classification, which places Lungu alongside Petru Cimpoeșu and Ion Manolescu, is, according to critic Cosmin Ciotloș, exaggerated and simplistic: "Personally, I am rather skeptic toward any sort of necessity that is imposed or predictable." Another particularity of Lungu's work involves his local affiliation, connected with the culture of Iași city and the historical region of Moldavia. Cernat, who noted that Lungu has a preference for publishing his work with Iași-based venues, deduced "the strategy of asserting a personal project with several levels, which assigns a certain place to a 'Moldavian' (Iașian) identity". Reportedly, Lungu refused several offers to move into Bucharest, Romania's capital, to which he prefers his adoptive Iași.
Neorealism and Postmodernism Dan Lungu himself places stress on his affiliation to a form of Neorealism deemed "microsocial"—that is, primarily concerned with everyday subjects and simple interactions between individuals. His main influences include foreign authors Peter Handke, Michel Houellebecq and Elfriede Jelinek, while his imagery has drawn comparisons with the films of Yugoslavian-born director Emir Kusturica. Dan C. Mihăilescu, "Gât golaș de România", in Ziarul Financiar, May 18, 2004 Lungu has also become one of the Romanian authors best known outside Romania, and, according to literary critic Marius Chivu, one in the rare position of being recommended to a local public with quotes from foreign critics. This notoriety, coupled with the candor of his accounts, has reputedly sparked criticism that Lungu is "ruining Romania's image abroad", which prompted Lungu to state: "I am not a Foreign Ministry employee."