“Solenoid” by Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu receives LA Times’ prize for fiction

Mircea Cărtărescu's Solenoid has been declared the fiction book of the year in the United States by the Los Angeles Times.

"Mircea Cărtărescu's masterpiece, Solenoid, is the kind of amazing literary text whose countless qualities emerge from any randomly chosen fragment. Anchored in the communist environment of Bucharest in the 1970s and early 1980s, the narrator of this anti-novel is a teacher at an ordinary school who, through myth, fairy tale, dream, hallucination, and realistic storytelling, shortens his childhood and youth, his workplace and colleagues, and, well, the entire universe,” the jury said, according to the press release.

The author thanked his US editor and the jury. "Thank you, Will Evans, thank you, Sean Cotter, thank you to the jury of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize! Thank you to the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York for the recent American tour! I still can't believe that Solenoid has won this award, one of the most important in the USA," Cărtărescu said on Facebook.

Solenoid was published by Deep Vellum, with the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute, through the TPS translation support program, and was the subject of an intense promotion campaign carried out by ICR New York and Deep Vellum, along with several American partners.

Solenoid is Mircea Cărtărescu's greatest critical and public success in the English-speaking world. Cărtărescu recently went on an American tour to promote the very same novel.

(Photo source: ICR New York)