“Ages don’t come gradually either. Suddenly, you see the one next to you has aged and you don’t know how that happened. Same way, you wake up one morning and you see it’s spring. You look and suddenly you see the lemon-tree in in flower. You smell it and then you watch the crows flying hither from the Bulgarian shore at sunset, how they count each other before flying away as a flock to find a sleeping place. Or you can see the wild pigeons building their nests and picking up only linden tree wood.’ Mircea Dinescu
Mircea Dinescu (Romanian poet, writer, politician, publicist and businessman)
Biography
With a prestigious career that spans over 50 years, Mircea Dinescu (1950 -) is a contemporary symbol of freedom in Romania.
He is a celebrated poet and journalist, and was a dissident of the communist epoque and a past president of the Romanian Writers’ Union.
He is the current president of the Romanian Academy of Gastronomy and founder of Culture Port Cetate (Fortress) Calafat, on the Danube River.
His debut in the literary press was at age 16 and he was only 20 when his first volume of poetry ‘An Invocation to No One’ was published and received the debut prize from the Romanian Writers’ Union, prompting critics to call him the enfant terrible of Romanian literature, a nickname he has accepted to wear ‘like a ball and chain’ throughout his career. Dinescu was the editor of the Luceafarul Magazine (1976-1982) and Literary Romania (1982-1989).
Toward the end of the 1970s, the Ceausescu regime entered its totalitarian phase, during which it tried to import significant elements of the Chinese Cultural Revolution into the home-grown nationalism toward a tougher brand of communism. Dinescu, an up-and-coming poet, was noticed for his outspoken and irreverent attitude which made him increasingly undesirable to the system.
Having published several acclaimed volumes of poetry (‘An Invocation to No One’, ‘The Lord of Bridges’, ‘At Your Service’, ‘Exile on a Peppercorn’, ‘Rimbaud the Merchant’) and having already received the venerable prize of the Romanian Academy, he suddenly lost his right to publish and was fired from his job. Then, following an interview he gave to the French newspaper ‘Libération’ , he was put under house arrest in March 1989. He was freed nine months later, on December 22, by the crowds of Romanians who took over the streets of Bucharest that day to celebrate the end of communism. He joined the demonstrators who marched to the state television station and there he announced live, during the first unrehearsed TV political presentation, despite the overwhelming uncertainty of the moment, the triumph of the revolution and the flight of the Ceausescu couple. Communism ended in December 1989 and Dinescu continued freely his career as a poet, political polemicist and publicist.
After 1989, his poetry was translated and published by prestigious houses like Suhrkampf and Fischer Verlage in Germany, Albin Michel in France, or Meulenhoff in Holland, and the poet received several prestigious prizes like ‘Poetry International’ (Rotterdam), ‘Central European Time’ (Budapest), and Herder Preis (Vienna). He became the president of the Writers’ Union (1990-1993), and after one more volume of poetry (‘A Drunkenness with Marx’), the poet turned to (in his words, ‘suffered a fall into”) journalism, editing a number of political satire magazines: ‘Catavencu Academy’ (“Catavencu” as a hint to the name of the archetypal demagogue in Romanian literature, while the magazine poked at post-1989 Romanian demagogues); Oxen Land, The Poorman’s aspirin; and later he co-produced the Catavencii Magazine. He also started to produce his own television show. His pamphlets have been later collected and published in volumes like ‘Pamphlets, Happy and Sad’, ‘The President’s Guard’ and “Failed at The Holiness Exam’.
He continues to be a public figure, with regular contributions in the press and appearances on television, as well as being a member of CNSAS, the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (the files rescued from the vaults of the extinct Communist Secret Police). In 2003, the Time Europe magazine nominated Dinescu in the category “Hate Busters” in relation to his work under the investigation into the archives to the totalitarian regime of dictator Ceausescu.
Dinescu’s interest in addressing and remaking cultural Romanian traditions became manifest in 1997 when, after discovering by chance the ruined buildings of an abandoned agricultural port on the Danube he invested the money earned from his media ventures and set about rebuilding and reconverting it into a ‘port of culture’. Since then, every year he has invited writers, translators, musicians, sculptors, photographers, film-makers, and other personalities to participate in projects organized under the umbrella of his Poetry Foundation. The cultural activities are supported by a parallel project which involves a farm, a vineyard which produces his own brand of wines, a restaurant which serves recipes from the bygone days of fine Romanian ‘boyar’ cuisine, and accommodation facilities for tourists, all with the declared aim of converting ‘poverty into ecology’, and rudimentary agriculture into refined culture.
Dinescu has never departed from literature. In 2010, he published ‘The Women of the Last Century’, followed by ‘The Necklace of Cake-of the-Dead Candy Beans’ (2017) and ‘The Three-Legged Chair’. It was a return he celebrated by releasing his first ever music album (where he sings some of his new poems, on self-made arrangements), and by touring the Romanian countryside (and sometimes other countries) with his ‘caravan of wine, songs, and poetry’.
Mircea Dinescu’s political role, extraordinary poetical achievements, and overall personal charisma place him at the top of contemporary Romanian literature and among the most politically-controverted, popular and beloved, Romanian celebrities.
Books
Volumes published in Romanian:
Invocation of Nobody, Cartea Românească Publishing House,
1971 Elegies from When I Was Younger, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1973 The Owner of Bridges (European Prints), Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1976, 1979
At your disposal, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1979
The Terror of Common Sense, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1980
The Democracy of Nature, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1981
Exile on a Peppercorn, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1983
Rimbaud the Merchant, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1985
Death Reads the Newspaper, Amsterdam, Editions Rodopi, 1989
Death Reads the Newspaper, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1990
The Owner of Bridges, anthology (1968-1985), Seara Publishing House, 1990
A Drunkenness with Marx, Seara Publishing House, 1996,
Merry and Sad Pamphlets, Seera Publishing House, 1996
Nelu Santinelu, Seara Publishing House, 1998
Whistles in the Church, anthology, Seara Publishing House, 1998
Failed at the Holiness Exam, Mircea Dinescu Foundation for Poetry, 2004
The Poetic Work (2 volumes), Cartier Publishing House, 2005
The 101st Most Beautiful Poems, Humanitas Publishing House, 2006
Women of the Last Century, Mircea Dinescu Poetry Foundation, 2010
Come in Your Simple Dress, Classical Poems 2014 – 1967,
Litera Publishing House, 2014
The Return of Barbarians (white verse) 2013 – 1973,
Litera Publishing House, 2014
The Necklace of the Cake-of-the-Dead Candy Beans
Mircea Dinescu Poetry Foundation, 2017
The Three-Legged Chair, Mircea Dinescu Poetry Foundation, 2019
Volumes published in foreign languages:
À votre disposition (București, 1982)
A jóság rémuralma (București, 1982)
Exile On A Peppercorn (Forest Books, London-Boston, 1985)
Exil im Pfefferkorn (trad. Werner Söllner, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1989)
Mircea Dinescu – Poèmes (Albin Michel Éd, Paris, 1989, avec une introduction d’Eugène Ionesco)
Trente deux poésies de Mircea Dinescu (Gap, 1989)
Titanic-Valcer (Budapesta, 1989)
Ein Maulkorb fürs Gras (trad. Werner Söllner, Ammann Verlag, Zürich, 1990)
De Dood leest de krant (Amsterdam, 1990)
A halál újságot olvas (Pécs, 1991)
Democrația naturii (traducere și prefață Ognean Stamboliev, Sofia, editura Hristo Botev, 1995)
Szentségekből bukásra (Miercurea Ciuc, 2005) ISBN 978-973-665-077-2
Szegek, ebek és szúró darazsak (Miercurea Ciuc, 2007) ISBN 978-973-665-176-2
Bőröndnyi ország (Miercurea Ciuc, 2009) ISBN 978-973-665-256-1
The Barbarians’ Return, translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu, Bloodaxe Books, 2018; ISBN:9781780372044
Included in antologies:
Streiflicht – Eine Auswahl zeitgenössischer rumänischer Lyrik (81 rumänische Autoren), – “Lumina piezișă”, antologie bilingvă cuprinzând 81 de autori români în traducerea lui Christian W. Schenk, Dionysos Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-9803871-1-9
Testament – Anthology of Modern Romanian Verse – Bilingual Edition English/Romanian / Testament – Antologie de Poezie Română Modernă – Ediție Bilingvă Engleză/Română (Daniel Ionita, Editura Minerva 2012 – ISBN 978-973-21-0847-5)
Literary Awards and Distinctions
The Prize of the Romanian Writers’ Union for Debut, 1971
Three Times: The Prize of the Romanian Writers’ Union
Romanian Academy Prize
Premiul Internațional de Poezie, Rotterdam 1989
International Prize CET, 1998
Herder Prize for Literature (1999)
National Prize of Poetry „Mihai Eminescu”, 2008
National Order Steaua României, comandor
Membru de onoare al Universității din Augsburg, 1991
Petőfi Prize for the Liberty of Central European peoples, 2024, 21st c. Institute si MOI Group
Public presentation of poetry:
The poem The Myopic painter, Spring Poems on the Underground, London, February 2026
SPECTACOLE TV SI VIDEO (TV, Utube, Tick tock)
Politics and Delicatessen – Realitatea TV
Poetry and Delicatessen – Prima TV