travel

This is a wonderful, if difficult book. It cronicles the author's life. Norman Manea suffered from both the Holocaust and Communism. Being Jewish, he and his family were deported during the Second World War to a concentration camp set up by Romania's fascist regime (General Ion Antonescu, Hitler's ally) in Transnistria, where several hundred thousand Jews were imprisoned and died in horrible circumstances. Luckily he survived the KZ and returned to Romania. Later on, when he had become a writer, he was declared enemy of the state and a 'hooligan' by Romania's Communists, because he had dared criticize the antisemitic government in an article. (Another fascinating Romanian-Jewish writer, Mihail Sebastian (see his Jurnal) was described as a 'hooligan' by antisemits in a literary scandal back in the 30's - the term has deep connotations for Manea). His relationship to his homeland remained troubled even after he left Romania in the 80's, settling down in New York as a professor for literature (he teaches at Bard College). Although he is one of Romania's best writers, his country's literary elite treats him with a certain embarassment. He can be compared in this respect to Imre Kertesz's relationship with Hungary.
I liked this book not only because of all the detailed, multi-faceted and subtle description of these events, but also because it is an honest and selfironical autobiography. Manea is a reluctant autobiographer. My feeling is that he wrote this book out of duty; not to brag about his past, rather to pay tribute to those he loved and to remind the world of the terrible journey he has been through - a very typical journey for Jews and many East Europeans in the 20th century...

P.S. If this book is superfluous, then so are the books by e.g. Anne Frank, Primo Levy and Mihail Sebastian. Good luck in burning them!