Andrei Codrescu

Andrei Codrescu

Codrescu in 2009
Born (1946-12-20) December 20, 1946
Romania
Occupation Novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, screenwriter, commentator
Genre Poetry, screenwriting, journalism, fiction, non-fiction

Andrei Codrescu (Romanian pronunciation: [anˈdrej koˈdresku]; born December 20, 1946) is a Romanian-American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio.[1] He was the Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009.

Biography

Born Andrei Perlmutter, he published his first poems in Romanian under the pen name Andrei Steiu. In 1965 he and his mother, a photographer and printer, were able to leave Romania after Israel paid 2,000 USD (or 10,000 USD, according to other sources[2]) for each to the Romanian communist regime.[3][4] After some time in Italy, they moved to the United States in 1966, and settled in Detroit, where he became a regular at John Sinclair’s Artists and Writers’ Workshop. A year later, he moved to New York, where he became part of the literary scene on the Lower East Side. There he met Allen Ginsberg, Ted Berrigan, and Anne Waldman, and published his first poems in English.

In 1970, his poetry book, License to Carry a Gun, won the "Big Table Award". He moved to San Francisco in 1970, and lived on the West Coast for seven years, four of those in Monte Rio, a Sonoma County town on the Russian River. He also lived in Baltimore (where he taught at Johns Hopkins University), New Orleans and Baton Rouge, publishing a book every year. During this time he wrote poetry, stories, essays and reviews for many publications, including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Harper's, and the Paris Review. He had regular columns in The Baltimore Sun, the City Paper, Architecture, Funny Times, Gambit Weekly, and Neon.

Codrescu has been a regular commentator on National Public Radio's news program, All Things Considered, since 1983. He won the 1995 Peabody Award for the film Road Scholar, an American road saga that he wrote and starred in, and is a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize.

In 1989, Codrescu covered the Romanian Revolution of 1989 for National Public Radio and ABC News's Nightline. His renewed interest in the Romanian language and literature led to new work written in Romanian, including “Miracle and Catastrophe”, a book-length interview conducted by the theologian Robert Lazu, and “The Forgiven Submarine”, an epic poem written in collaboration with poet Ruxandra Cesereanu, which won the 2008 Romania Radio Cultural award. His books were translated into Romanian by Ioana Avadani, Ioana Ieronim, Carmen Firan, Rodica Grigore, and Lacrimioara Stoie. In 2002 he returned to Romania with a PBS Frontline World video crew to "take the temperature" of his homeland and produced the story, "My Old Haunts." [5] In 2005 he was awarded the prestigious international Ovidius Prize (also known as the Ovid Prize), previous winners of which include Mario Vargas Llosa, Amos Oz, and Orhan Pamuk.

In 1981, Codrescu became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He is the editor and founder of the online journal Exquisite Corpse, a journal of “books and ideas”. He reigned as King of the Krewe du Vieux for the 2002 New Orleans Mardi Gras season. He has two children, Lucian and Tristan, from his marriage to Alice Henderson. He is currently married to Laura Cole.

Codrescu's archive and much of his personal library are now part of the Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections.[6]

Family

His first wife was Aurelia Munteanu,[7] and his second wife was Alice Henderson.[2] He has two sons, Lucian and Tristan Codrescu.

Awards and honors

Chronological Publications List

Books

Editor/Founder

Anthologies edited

Controversial comments

On the December 19, 1995, broadcast of All Things Considered, Codrescu reported that some Christians believe in a "rapture" and 4 million believers will ascend to Heaven immediately. He continued, "The evaporation of 4 million who believe this crap would leave the world an instantly better place."[8]

NPR subsequently apologized for Codrescu's comments, saying, "Those remarks offended listeners and crossed a line of taste and tolerance that we should have defended with greater vigilance."[9][10]

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ John J. O'Connor (March 20, 1995). "TELEVISION REVIEW; Romanian Kerouac Is Back". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-01-18.
  2. 1 2 Leydon, Joe (August 8, 1993). "COVER STORY: Road Trip! : Andrei Codrescu is your basic droll Transylvanian poet and social commentator who was given a '68 Caddy and a mission: Find America and its soul". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Diaspora in direct" (in Romanian). Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  4. ↑ "A Refugee Among Refugees". The New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  5. ↑ PBS Frontline World "My Old Haunts" Oct. 31, 2002
  6. ↑ LSU Libraries Special Collections website
  7. ↑ Pricop, Constantin. "Interviu cu Andrei Codrescu - "Sensul diferentei a fost cu mine de cind m-am ascut"" (in Romanian). memoria.ro. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  8. ↑ "NPR apologizes for Codrescu's remark that 'crossed a line of tolerance'". Washington, D.C.: Current. 1996-01-15.
  9. ↑ "NPR replies to 40,000 complaints about Codrescu broadcast". Washington, D.C.: Current. 1996-05-27.
  10. ↑ "Andrei Codrescu". NPR. 2010. Archived from the original on 26 October 2010. Retrieved 2010-10-22.
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