Sorin Alexandrescu (born 18 August 1937) is a Romanian-born academic, literary critic, semiotician, linguist, essayist, and translator.
Born in Bucharest as the son of Constantin, a magistrate, and Ileana, Mircea Eliade's sister, he graduated from the "Mihai Viteazu" High School in his hometown (1955), and after that, from the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest (1959). After teaching comparative literature at the University of Bucharest, where he was considered to be a structuralist, he was sent in 1969 by the Romanian authorities to teach Romanian language and literature at universities in Amsterdam and Groningen. In 1974 he decided to defect.
In 1976, he founded the International Journal of Roumanian Studies.
During the 1989 Romanian Revolution, he returned to Romania as a correspondent for a Dutch newspaper.
In 1998, he was named presidential adviser for culture. In 2001, he settled permanently in Romania again. That same year, he was one of the founders of the so-called Centrul de Excelență în Studiul Imaginii at the University of Bucharest, together with Dan Grigorescu, , Laura Mesina, Vlad Alexandrescu, Vasile Morar and Zoe Petre.
Books The Logic of Personages, 1973 Logique du personnage: reflexions sur l'univers faulknerien, (1974) Dimitrie Cantemir: Roemeens historicus en politicus 1673-1723, Bussum 1975 Transformational grammar and the Rumanian language, 1977 Richard Rorty, 1995 Figurative of the Art. Beginning and End. 20th Century in Romania, 1998 Paradoxul român, 1998 Identitate în ruptură. Mentalitati românești postbelice, 2000 La modernité a l'Est. 13 aperçus sur la literature roumaine, 2000
References
External links Articles by Sorin Alexandrescu in Observator cultural Centrul Cultural Pitești Sorin Alexandrescu în oglinda Occidentului, Solomon Marcus, Observator cultural - numărul 126, iulie 2002 Mircea Eliade – identitate în ruptură, Carmen Mușat, Observator cultural - numărul 338, septembrie 2006
Interviews „Nu numai în cultura romană, ci și pentru ea” (I). Interviu cu Sorin Alexandrescu, Raluca Alexandrescu, Observator cultural - numărul 52, februarie 2001 „Nu numai în cultura romană, ci și pentru ea” (II). Interviu cu Sorin Alexandrescu, Raluca Alexandrescu, Observator cultural - numărul 53, februarie 2001 Cultura bate criza!, Carmen Mușat, Observator cultural - numărul 547, octombrie 2010