John Cheever said that any confusion between autobiography and fiction debases fiction. I like Cheever. I respect him as an author, and I love reading his short stories. Still, everything a writer writes is anchored in his own reality. In other words, it is based on his biography. Whether one writes about Spartacus, about the life of dogs, or an odyssey in the distant future, when one gets to the human element, to feelings and emotions, the author draws from his own experience. How else? Two thousand years ago or two thousand years into the future, and a story has meaning only within the framework of people.

My recent novel “The Last Patient,” (to be published 2/2025) emerged from my life and from what I was conditioned by it to imagine. The novel depicts a world, exotic to some, revelatory and captivating to others: Romania under communist rule, the middle of the 20th century. My characters fall in love, survive the war, bow to power, cheat, resist, dream about defecting, and — well, I don’t want to give it all away yet. I hope I have woven reality and fiction into a strong narrative and an emotional read.