Camionul bulgar

by Dumitru Țepeneag

O poveste de dragoste intre personajul-narator si Milena/Mailena, scriitoare slovaca, ia nastere in lumea virtuala printr-un asiduu schimb de e-mailuri care se incruciseaza cu mesajele catre sotia Marianne, aflata la New York pentru a-si trata o boala misterioasa. Naratorul il plasmuieste in paralel pe Tvetan, camionagiul bulgar si viril, in periplu prin Europa, pe Beatrice, dansatoarea greu de penetrat si iubitoare de arici, si le impleteste destinele in chipul straniu si original care-i este propriu lui Dumitru Tepeneag.

„«Dificil» (in atitudinile publice si in textele literare deopotriva), sabotind, in mod sistematic, previzibilitatea, prozatorul ne obliga, de fapt, sa-l citim (si) prin lentila textelor sale programatice, in care experienta poetica a suprarealismului doctrinar fuzioneaza cu «metoda» unor noi romancieri d’antan precum Robbe-Grillet, Robert Pinget, Jean Ricardou, iar telquelismul – cu filozofia existentialismului european.” (Paul Cernat)

„...un spirit ca argintul-viu, amator de «sotron» pe teren cultural, este mereu disciplinat de o constiinta scriitoriceasca ferma, cu reguli profesioniste si cu linii teoretice pentru care opteaza, in care crede.” (Adina Dinitoiu)

„Unul dintre artizanii marcanti ai sincronizarii literaturii romane, in anii ’60, cu literatura universala moderna, sef de scoala literara, ulterior franctiror neobosit pe frontul innoirii prozei, precursor al textualismului optzecist, revelator implicit (prin perfecta lui integrare temporara, fara stridente, intr-o literatura europeana prin excelenta occidentala, cea franceza) al europenitatii literaturii noastre...” (Nicolae Barna)

Genres: Romanian Literature, Novels

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Dumitru Țepeneag is a contemporary Romanian novelist, essayist, short story writer and translator, who currently resides in France. He was one of the founding members of the Oniric group, and a theoretician of the Onirist trend in Romanian literature, while becoming noted for his activities as a dissident.

Ţepeneag is one of the most important Romanian translators of French literature, and has rendered into Romanian the works by New Left, avant-garde and Neo-Marxist authors such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Robert Pinget, Albert Béguin, Jacques Derrida, and Alexandre Kojève.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Bulgarian Truck by Dumitru Tepeneag is the first book ever to be classified as a “building site beneath the open sky” and not a novel. This mixture of unpunctuated Duras-inspired narrative about a murderous Bulgarian truck driver and the author-narrator’s ailing long distance email and phone relationship with a more successful writer (and other women with similar names), is a self-conscious marvel. An anti-novel (as the translator writes) also about the art of translation, and the frustration of being a Romanian ex-pat writing in French, the book takes potshots at translators and the author’s frustration at relying on them to reach a wider English audience. Derived in part from the “oneiric” movement, the text’s unpunctuated sections (which comprise the “oneiric” content) are the least coherent, however, provide a dreamy depth to what otherwise might be seen as an extended old man’s lament at becoming extinct in the digital age.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars from me usually means I didn't much like it, but in this case it means I've now read nearly every available Tsepeneag book available in English and this seemed like a little more of the same; though that "same" is thoroughly enjoyable, scrupulously constructed (within a fragmented facade), free-spirited and doleful, grounded in practical humanism, and imbued with a casually cosmopolitan literariness that's a consistently pure delight to this bookworm.

[World Literature Today]

This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the Sept/Oct 2016 issue of World Literature Today Magazine.

http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...