Norman Manea

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Norman Manea (born July 19, 1936) is a Romanian writer and intellectual.

Born in Burdujeni, currently a neighborhood of Suceava. Because he was Jewish in the time of Fascist-controlled Romania (see: Romania during World War II), Manea was deported in 1941 (at the age of 5) together with the rest of his family to a concentration camp in Transnistria, but survived, along with his whole family.

He was educated at the Institute of Civil Engineering, in Bucharest. Making his debut as a writer in the 1960s communist Romania, he described the everyday life under the totalitarian regime, but did not outrightly criticize the communist rulers. Nonetheless, he was forced to leave Romania in 1986, and after spending a year in West Berlin he arrived in the United States.

A highly cerebral writer, he has written several critically acclaimed books, such as Compulsory Happiness, The Black Envelope and Return of the Hooligan (the last being his memoirs), which has been translated into more than 15 languages. Manea is one of the most internationally famous contemporary Romanian writers, considered more popular abroad than in his native country.

He currently lives in New York City with his wife and is a professor of literature at Bard College.