Mircea Cartarescu

A mesmerizing novel about the magical and gritty world of Bucharest in the 1980s by a celebrated Eastern European writer. 'Gripping, impassioned, unexpected' - Los Angeles Times A dreamlike novel of memory and magic, Nostalgia turns the dark world of Communist Bucharest into a place of strange enchantments. Here, a man plays increasingly death-defying games of Russian Roulette, a child...

The first volume of the enthralling, hallucinatory masterwork by one of Central Europe's most celebrated novelists. 'We exist between the past and future like the vermiform body of a butterfly, in between its two wings' Beneath the streets of communist Bucharest linger hidden passageways, lost to memory. Here, sprawling hospitals give way to travelling circuses and underground jazz clubs, and...

Based on Cărtărescu's own experience as a teacher, Solenoid submerges us in the mundane details of a diarist's life and spirals into an existential account of history, philosophy, and mathematics. Grounded in the reality of communist Romania, it grapples with frightening health care, the absurdities of the education system, and the struggles of family life while investigating other universes and...

A highly-acclaimed master work of fiction from Crtrescu, author of Blinding: an existence (and eventually a cosmos) created by forking paths. Based on Crtrescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you...