Catalin Dorian Florescu

L I E P M A N A G
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Catalin Dorian Florescu
Switzerland / Romania
Catalin Dorian Florescu was born in Timisoara/Romania in 1967, where he spent his
childhood and youth. In 1976 his father took him to Italy and the USA, but they
returned home after 8 months abroad. Six years later, he and his parents managed to
escape from Romania into permanent emigration in Switzerland – he is now a Swiss
citizen. He studied psychology and Gestalt Thearpie and worked for several years as
psychotherapist in drug rehabilitation. After the publication of his first novel, he
turned full-time writer in 2001. He lives in Zürich.
His first novel WUNDERZEIT was published to great critical acclaim and received
several prizes, including the Chamisso-Förderpreis and the Hermann-Lenz
Scholarship. For his first two novels, Catalin Dorian Florescu was awarded the Anna-
Seghers-Preis 2003.
ZAIRA. Ch. Beck. Novel, 2008
In his great new novel, Catalin Dorian Florescu tells the story of Zaira, the celebrated
Romanian puppeteer of the 1960s. The novel is set in such diverse places as Eastern Europe
and the United States, stretching from the time of Cold War to the present day. It is also the
story of an impossible love affair that lasted for decades.
With great narrative esprit, the author reveals an epoch full of dramatic conflicts. Well-paced
and passionately narrated, ZAIRA tells the story of a woman who, in an age of war and
terror and against all obstacles, follows what she loves and what she knows is right – even if
that means that she ultimately pays a price for deceiving herself.
Italy: Giunti Editori (to be publ.)
Holland: Signatuur (to be publ.)
DER BLINDE MASSEUR. („THE BLIND MASSEUR“). Pendo 2006. Novel
As a boy growing up in Romania, Teodor’s great passion was listening to peasants and their
uncanny stories of demons, devils and vampires. Now a successful businessman who has
been living in the West for more than twenty years, he returns to his native country, to a
world still shaped by superstition and trickery. He is searching for something called home,
for something called happiness, and not least for the woman who once was his first love, a
love he had to betray when his family made their dramatic escape into the West. His
picaresque odyssey, on which he meets a whole army of people trying to make their luck,
leads him to a sleepy little spa town lost in the Romanian hills. His encounter with Ion, a
blind masseur who possesses an amazing personal library of 30.000 books, will turn his life
inside-out – in many ways.
In his new novel, Florescu paints a wonderfully vivid panorama of Eastern Europe, of a
country struggling to find its place and get its share in a Europe that is quickly growing

closer together, and of people caught in the gap between their dreams of the West and the
realities of their Eastern world.
Holland: Arena, 2007 Romania: Polirom, 2007
Spain: Lengua de Trapo, 2007
Italy: Giunti Editori (to be publ.)
France: Liana Levi, 2008
DER KURZE WEG NACH HAUSE. * („THE SHORT WAY HOME“). Pendo 2002. Novel
For the first time after his escape into the West, 23-year-old Ovidiu – a Romanian living in
Switzerland – returns to his home country in 1990. Vienna, Budapest, Timisoara are the
stations of a trip ending at the Black Sea resort Mangalia, a trip that confronts Ovidiu with
his past and makes him look at Romania with the eyes of the one who has been away. A trip
that also forces him to re-evaluate his friendship with Luca, his schoolday friend from Zürich
with whom he shares a great passion for the movies and who precedes and accompanies him
on his trip – and whose unholy influence Ovidiu needs to throw off.
“Talent is not enough if you want to tell stories the way Catalin Dorian Florescu does. You need to
have grown up amongst storytellers, where all possible kinds of stories – believable and phantastical –
are passed on by word of mouth.” – FAZ
“Catalin Dorian Florescu’s storytelling makes the pages bloom.” – Der Standard
“Both of the author’s novels are impressive in their abundance of bitter and wonderful stories. Thus,
they broaden our horizon towards the East.” - Spectrum
„Here is Ian McEwan, but with far greater humour, irony and salt. A unique overview of life in
Eastern Europe during and just after the last days of Soviet rule” – New Books in German, Fall 2002.
WUNDERZEIT. * („TIME OF WONDERS“). Pendo 2001. Novel.
1982: 15-year-old Alin and his parents are just about to escape from Romania and cross into
Yugoslavia. In the harrowing time of waiting at the border post, Alin thinks back to his
childhood, to how his parents dreamed of escape, of the West, of a mythical, paradisiac
America – and how their dream nearly came true: In 1976 his father manages to take Alin for
medical treatment to Italy – and from there on to the miracle of miracles: New York. But the
father’s American dream turns into a nightmare of failure and despair, and the two return
home – accepting that they might never again get a second chance to leave their oppressive
country. WUNDERZEIT brings a boy’s magical childhood in Ceaucescu’s Romania to
tangible life. It depicts a world of wonders and a child’s oblivious dissidence in the face of
the paranoia of a dictatorial regime. And it shows what it means to leave home – even if it is
a terrible place – in hope of finding a new home.
“An unpretentious and realistic account of an early coming-of-age, taking its measure in precisely
observed details and small gestures, and therefore all the more authentic.” – Frankfurter Rundschau
“A modern picaresque novel, whose limping and dreaming hero Alin is a younger and more
innocuous brother of the “Tin Drum”’s dwarfish Oskar Matzerath.” - FAZ
“Refreshingly light and devoid of any pretentiousness. […] This debut is proof of an original, highly
talented story-teller with his own genuine voice, thrilling and entertaining, full of images and ideas,
which one would love to listen to for many more pages.”- Der Bund
*foreign rights handled by Pendo Verlag, Munich

Catalin Florian Florescu
Zaira
(Zaira)
Verlag C.H. Beck, February 2008, 478 pp. ISBN: 978-3-406-57029-2
Once upon a time in Romania
Zaira is a beautifully constructed, sweeping novel, which
takes the reader on a dizzying journey spanning countries,
continents, major political events and the whole lifetime
of the female protagonist, Zaira herself, who is also the
narrator. As for the real author, Catalin Dorian Florescu,
he succeeds in that most difficult of feats – a male author
assuming an authentic female voice. He also avoids
the long, intricate sentences one might expect from a
work reminiscent in its scope, detail and ambition of a
Middlemarch or even a Buddenbrooks. Instead he breaks
up his sentences, which in consequence sometimes take on
a new meaning retrospectively. Another achievement is the
way in which Zaira’s voice matures as she grows older, thus
enabling the reader to hear as well as see her development.
Zaira is born into a privileged family of powerful landowners
in feudal pre-Second World War Romania. She is virtually
abandoned by her mother, who prefers the privileged life of
a Romanian cavalier officer’s wife in Bucharest to bringing
up a child, and left in the care of her Aunt Sofia, who
herself was left by her husband after her only child, Zizi,
was born. It is Zizi in fact who is responsible for instilling
in Zaira the love of fantasy and story-telling that influences
not just her future career, but her whole attitude to life.
Also significant is the influence of the child’s pious and
austere grandmother, the primary model for the series of
damaged, emotionally aloof women who populate the book.
No less important are the throng of rustic characters, from
Zsusza, the Hungarian cook, to Misa the family’s alcoholic
coachman. All these are part of a culture and a way of life
that will finally disappear during the Second World War, with
the arrival of first the Germans and then the Communists,
during and after which the author depicts, through Zaira’s
eyes, a whole era of deracination. The tale moves on to
America in the troubled 1960s and 1970s and finally
back home, where the hectic, switchback fortunes and
misfortunes of this strange but spirited woman end.
To belong, to have a home, a class, a culture – this perhaps is
the author’s underlying theme. A magnificent achievement.
© Judith Stadler
Catalin Florian Florescu
was born in Timisoara, Romania, in
1967, where he spent his childhood
and youth. In 1976 his father took him
to Italy and the USA, but they returned
home after eight months abroad. Six
years later, he and his parents managed
to escape from Romania to permanent
emigration in Switzerland – he is now
a Swiss citizen. He studied Psychology
and Gestalt Therapy and worked for
several years as a psychotherapist in
drug rehabilitation clinics. Following
the publication of his first novel in
2001, he became a full-time writer.
He lives in Zurich.
Previous works include:
Wunderzeit (2001); Der kurze Weg
nach Hause (2002); Der blinde
Masseur (2006) – all Pendo Verlag.
Prizes include:
Hermann Lenz Scholarship (2008);
Dresden Writer-in-Residence (2008);
Anna Seghers Preis (2003);
Camisso Scholarship of the
Bavarian Academy (2002).
Rights to this work sold to:
Giunti Editori (Italy)
Application for assistance with
translation costs – Switzerland
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please contact the editor.
‘An adventurous, exciting story that
grips you to the end. Zaira is an
outstanding and beautiful account of
the literary landscape that is Central
Europe.’ – Die Presse
‘C.D. Florescu has written a proud,
exciting novel, richly bedecked with
memories.’ – Die Welt
FICTION 17

10. Juni 2008
WELTGESCHICHTE ALS ROMAN
Kühe, Panzer und Revolutionen
Von Christoph Schröder
Wie bleibt man selbst, wenn die äußeren Umstände verlangen, dass
man ein anderer wird? Der Autor Catalin Dorian Florescu verbindet
in einem monumentalen Roman rumänische Geschichte mit dem
wechselhaften Leben einer Frau.
Man kann das beinahe größenwahnsinnig nennen. Zunächst einmal, weil ein
Mann einen Roman durchgehend aus der Perspektive einer Frau schreibt, an
sich schon ein Wagnis. Und: ein Buch, das sich vornimmt, ein ganzes
Jahrhundert in seinen ideologischen Verwerfungen abzubilden. Ein knapp 500
Seiten starkes Werk, das über die Jahrzehnte hinweg in das Leben seiner Figur
die Weltgeschichte kunstvoll einarbeitet.
Man liest in den Verlagsvorschauen immer wieder einmal eine Ankündigung
dieser Art und winkt ab. Catalin Dorian Florescu, 1967 im rumänischen
Timisoara geboren und heute in der Schweiz lebend, ist mit seinem neuen
Roman "Zaira" all diesen Ansprüchen sehr nahe gekommen. Er erzählt davon,
wie Menschen von den äußeren Umständen verändert werden. Und auch davon,
wie sie sich selbst trotz der äußeren Umstände treu bleiben können.
Zaira also heißt Florescus Heldin. Sie entstammt einer
reichen Gutsherrenfamilie. Die Mutter zieht es in die Stadt,
wo das Leben pulsiert; der Vater, ein hochrangiger Soldat,
bleibt ein großer Unbekannter. Als Ausgleich dafür hat Zaira
gleich mehrere Mütter und Zizi, den Cousin, der zur zentralen
Figur ihrer frühen Kindheit und Jugend wird und ihr eine
Parallelwelt eröffnet: die des Theaters.
Zaira wächst auf in einer Welt, in der Stolz und
Standesbewusstsein selbstverständlich sind. Umso härter
trifft dann der Gang der Historie die Familie: Zunächst
kommen die Nazis mit ihren Panzern auf dem Weg nach Stalingrad vorbei (just
in jenem Moment übrigens, in dem der adoleszente Paul mit hochrotem Kopf
Zairas Brüste berühren will). Später kommen die Kommunisten und sind um
keinen Deut besser. Sie machen die ehemaligen Gutsherren zu Bettlern, rauben
ihnen Vieh, Land und Macht und, jedenfalls einigen, auch die Würde.
Nicht so Zaira, deren Leben zu einer Odyssee wird durch die Zeiten und über die
Kontinente, durch Liebesaffären und Enttäuschungen. Florescu führt den Leser
in das kommunistische Rumänien der Nachkriegszeit. Nach Prag, wo die
Reformbestrebungen Dubceks soeben von russischen Panzern überrollt werden.
Und schließlich nach Washington - jene Stadt, in der Martin Luther King seine
berühmte Rede gehalten hat.
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10. Juni 2008
Zaira wird von der Gutsherrentochter zur Puppenspielerin; sie wird zur Mutter
einer höchst schweigsamen und schwierigen Tochter, die ihr die Vaterlosigkeit
nie verzeihen wird; sie lässt ihre große Liebe zurück, weil die nicht von der
Flasche lassen kann, baut sich in den USA eine neue Emigranten-Existenz auf
und erlebt dort eine weitere einschneidende Enttäuschung. Zu der Beerdigung
ihrer Eltern, die vom Staat weiterhin als Klassenfeinde auf das Übelste
gegängelt werden, fährt Zaira nicht: "Die haben in meinem Leben gefehlt, jetzt
fehle ich an ihrem Grab", denkt sie sich.
Florescu erzählt diese Biografie frei von jeder symbolisch-überladenen
Aufdringlichkeit. Es geht stets darum, wer auf welche Weise Macht über wen
ausübt, und immer wieder findet Florescu Bilder, die das Große im Kleinen
spiegeln, schreibt er Szenen von großer Prägnanz. Und ihm gelingt die
Charakterstudie einer Frau auf ihrer Gratwanderung zwischen Stolz und
Sturheit, zwischen Mut und Hochmut. Eine Frau, deren Leben, wie es immer
wieder heißt, "eine Schwindel erregende Reise" ist. In einem Augenblick, als sie
bereits in den USA ist, denkt Zaira, dass nun, da schon so viele ausgestiegen
sind, das Karussell aufhören könnte, sich zu drehen, um den Schwindel zu
stoppen, der sie beherrscht. Aber das Karussell wird sich weiterdrehen.
In einem Beitrag zu einem Symposium mit dem Titel "Wo ist der Platz zum
Leben" sagte der Autor: "Je früher man seine Heimat verlassen hat, desto
stärker bleibt sie in der Erinnerung magisch überhöht, man weist ihr die
Qualität der Heilung zu oder der Linderung jener Schmerzen, die das Exil
zugefügt hat." Das ist ein Satz, der auch auf Florescus Heldin zutrifft.
Catalin Dorian Florescu: Zaira
C.H. Beck Verlag, München; 478 Seiten; 19,90 Euro.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2008
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