Professor Florin Manolescu receiving the Romanian Science Fiction&Fantasy Society Award for his collection of short-stories, “The Mentalists” in 2009.
Professor Florin Manolescu (January 11th, 1943, Bucharest – December 13th, 2015, Bucharest) was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and writer.
May He Rest In Peace !
In 1961 he graduated the Gheorge Şincai High School in Bucharest.
He studied German and Romanian literature at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest between 1963 and 1968.
From 1968 to 1990 he was Research Assistant of Romanian literature, then PhD Research Assistant and in 1990 he became an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest. In 1993 he was invited and hired as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany and in 1995 he was appointed Professor at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany.
Between 2010-2014, Florin Manolescu he was a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest.
Florin Manolescu is the author in 1978, of the first doctoral thesis about science fiction in Romania, published in 1980 at the Univers Press, as „Literatura S.F.” (Science Fiction).
Florin Manolescu’s special areas of professional activity were the cultural interactions between Romanian-German literature, Romanian exile literature, imagology, anthropology, the literary theory of the text, science fiction.
Awards : The Maiorescu Prize, awarded by the Romanian Academy ; Șerban Cioculescu Prize for Literary History, awarded by the National Museum of the Romanian Literature ; The Romanian Writers Union Prize ; The Romanian Cultural Institute Award; The 1967 Annual Award for Literary Criticism (Junimea Award), awarded by the literary magazine Amfiteatru; The Romanian Science Fiction&Fantasy Society Award for his collection of short-stories, “The Mentalists“.
Published Volumes :
“Poezia criticilor” (The Poetry of the Critics), Eminescu Publishing House, Bucharest, 1971 (The Romanian Writers Union Prize).
“Literatura S.F.” (Science Fiction), Univers Publishing Press, Bucharest, 1980.
The last chapter of this volume, „The Condition of Science Fiction” was included in the high school manual, „Romanian Language and Literature”, published in 2004 by Humanitas Press. The volume (in romanian) is available online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/213273308/Florin-Manolescu-Literatura-SF#scribd
“Caragiale și Caragiale. Jocuri cu mai multe strategii” (Caragiale and Caragiale. Games with multiple strategies), Cartea Românească Publishing House, Bucharest,1983 ; reprinted by Humanitas Publishing House in 2002.
“Litere în tranziție” (Letters in Transition), Cartea Românească Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998.
“Misterul camerei închise. Nouă povestiri incredibile” (The Closed Room’s Mystery. Nine Incredible Stories), SF short stories, Humanitas Press, 2002.
“Enciclopedia exilului literar românesc, 1945-1989. Scriitori, reviste, instituții, organizații” (The Encyclopedia of the Romanian Literary Exile, 1945-1989. Writers, Magazines, Institutions, Organizations), Compania Publishing Press, 2003 (The Romanian Cultural Institute Award & Constanta Book Salon Award). The Second edition revised and enlarged in 2010 (Șerban Cioculescu Prize for Literary History, awarded by the National Museum of the Romanian Literature, and the Maiorescu Prize, awarded by the Romanian Academy).
“Mentaliștii. Alte nouă povestiri incredibile” (The Mentalists. Nine other incredible stories) (The Romanian Science Fiction&Fantasy Society Award, 2009), Cartea Românească Publishing Press, 2009.
“Serendipity” is translated into English by Silvia Cora and Nigel Walker and was published in Translation Café (no. 130, August 2012), the online magazine Bucharest University : http://www.revista.mttlc.ro/130/florinmanolescu4.html
“Cu ochii pe mine. Jurnal român-german 1995” (With An Eye On Me. Romanian-German Diary 1995), Cartea Românească Publishing House, 2010, Bucharest.
“Il Gatto e l’astronomo” (The Cat and the Astronomer) (translation in Italian and afterword by Angela Tarantino), SF short-stories, MobyDick Press, Faenza, Italy, 2013.
Collective volumes :
“The Phantom Church and Other Stories from Romania“, Editor (and author of the selection, introduction, chronology, bibliography notes) of the anthology of romanian fantastic literature, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.
“A splendid collection of short fiction, now in a first-time English translation, from the perpetually beleaguered little country whose writers have long struggled against political repression and censorship, most notably during the communist dictatorship. . . . An exemplary anthology.”–Kirkus
“This collection of Romanian stories sounds the unique depths of a world that has not yet lost its roots in the magic world of the fairy tale. The American reader will find here a world as exotic as that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez” – Andrei Codrescu, Louisiana State University, USA
Florin Manolescu collaborated with articles to the “Dictionary of Romanian Literature” (Univers Publishing, 1979) and “Dictionary of Romanian Writers” (Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, 1995).
Permanent collaborations and literary chronicles within the main romanian literary magazines : Amfiteatru/Amfitheater (1967–1968), România literară/Literary Romania (1969), Argeș (1969–1971), Contemporanul/The Contemporary (1982–1983), Caietele Teatrului Naţional/The Romanian National Theater’s Journals (1987–1989), Luceafărul (1990–1993), Viața Românească/Romanian Life (2012–2015, Cahiers roumains d’études littéraires/The Romanian Journals of Literary Studies, Revista de istorie şi teorie literară/The Romanian Journal of Critical History and Theory, Rumänische Rundschau/The Romanian Review, Manuscriptum, Caiete critice/Critical Journals, Convorbiri literare/Literary Conversations, Tomis, Luceafărul, Contrapunct/Counterpoint, Apostrof/Apostrophe, Vatra, Colecţia Povestiri Ştiinţifico-Fantastice (The Collection of the Science Fiction Stories, no. 28, 2015).
Florin Manolescu (1943-2015) : RIP !
