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Captives
A stunning novel set in postwar Romania about language, identity, and loss.
Captives, the acclaimed writer Norman Manea's first novel, is a fascinating, kaleidoscopic, and imaginative look into postwar Romania. Divided into three sections–narrated in first-, second-, and third-person voices–Captives explores the lives of several defeated characters as they become almost too much to bear under the weight of endless loss of identity, trauma of having survived the Second World War, and submission to the totalitarian state.
This is a moving account of a country shaken by communism and anti-Semitism and haunted by recent atrocities, from "a distinguished writer whose vision of totalitarianism is close to Kafka's cloudy menace, universal yet internalized" (Richard Eder, The New York Times).
Captives, the acclaimed writer Norman Manea's first novel, is a fascinating, kaleidoscopic, and imaginative look into postwar Romania. Divided into three sections–narrated in first-, second-, and third-person voices–Captives explores the lives of several defeated characters as they become almost too much to bear under the weight of endless loss of identity, trauma of having survived the Second World War, and submission to the totalitarian state.
This is a moving account of a country shaken by communism and anti-Semitism and haunted by recent atrocities, from "a distinguished writer whose vision of totalitarianism is close to Kafka's cloudy menace, universal yet internalized" (Richard Eder, The New York Times).
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1970
1 person is currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Norman Manea
66 books76 followersNorman Manea is a Jewish Romanian writer and author of short fiction, novels, and essays about the Holocaust, daily life in a communist state, and exile. He lives in the United States, where he is the Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer in residence at Bard College.
He left Romania in 1986 with a DAAD-Berlin Grant and in 1988 went to the US with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Catholic University in Washington DC.
Manea's most acclaimed book, The Hooligan’s Return (2003), is an original novelistic memoir, encompassing a period of almost 80 years, from the pre-war period, through the Second World War, the communist and post-communist years to the present.
Manea has been known and praised as an international important writer since early 1990s, and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages. He has received more than 20 awards and honors.
Born in Suceava (Bukovina, Romania), Manea was deported as a child, in 1941, by the Romanian fascist authorities, allied with Nazi Germany, to the concentration camp of Transnistria in the Ukraine with his family and the entire Jewish population of the region. He returned to Romania in 1945 with the surviving members of his family and graduated with high honors from the high school in his home town, Suceava. He studied engineering at the Construction Institute in Bucharest and graduated with master’s degree in hydro-technique in 1959, working afterwards in planning, fieldwork and research. He has devoted himself to writing since 1974.
Manea’s literary debut took place in Povestea Vorbii (The Tale of Word, 1966), an avant-garde and influential magazine that appeared in the early years of cultural liberalization in communist Romania and was suppressed after six issues. Until he was forced into exile (1986) he published ten volumes of short fiction essays and novels. His work was an irritant to the authorities because of the implied and overt social-political criticism and he faced a lot of trouble with the censors and the official press. At the same time that sustained efforts were made by the cultural authorities to suppress his work, it had the support and praise of the country’s most important literary critics.
After the collapse of the Ceaușescu dictatorship, several of his books started to be published in Romania. The publication in a Romanian translation of his essay Happy Guilt, which first appeared in The New Republic, led to a nationalist outcry in Romania, which he in turn has analysed in depth in his essay Blasphemy and Carnival. Echoes of this scandal can still be found in some articles of the current Romanian cultural press.
Meantime, in the United States and in European countries, Manea’s writing was received with great acclaim. Over the past two decades he has been proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature by literary and academic personalities and institutions in the United States, Sweden, Romania, Italy and France. Important contemporary writers expressed admiration of the author’s literary work and his moral stand before and after the collapse of communism: the Nobel laureates Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Octavio Paz, Orhan Pamuk, as well as Philip Roth, Claudio Magris, Antonio Tabucchi, E. M. Cioran, Antonio Munoz Molina, Cynthia Ozick, Louis Begley and others.
He left Romania in 1986 with a DAAD-Berlin Grant and in 1988 went to the US with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Catholic University in Washington DC.
Manea's most acclaimed book, The Hooligan’s Return (2003), is an original novelistic memoir, encompassing a period of almost 80 years, from the pre-war period, through the Second World War, the communist and post-communist years to the present.
Manea has been known and praised as an international important writer since early 1990s, and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages. He has received more than 20 awards and honors.
Born in Suceava (Bukovina, Romania), Manea was deported as a child, in 1941, by the Romanian fascist authorities, allied with Nazi Germany, to the concentration camp of Transnistria in the Ukraine with his family and the entire Jewish population of the region. He returned to Romania in 1945 with the surviving members of his family and graduated with high honors from the high school in his home town, Suceava. He studied engineering at the Construction Institute in Bucharest and graduated with master’s degree in hydro-technique in 1959, working afterwards in planning, fieldwork and research. He has devoted himself to writing since 1974.
Manea’s literary debut took place in Povestea Vorbii (The Tale of Word, 1966), an avant-garde and influential magazine that appeared in the early years of cultural liberalization in communist Romania and was suppressed after six issues. Until he was forced into exile (1986) he published ten volumes of short fiction essays and novels. His work was an irritant to the authorities because of the implied and overt social-political criticism and he faced a lot of trouble with the censors and the official press. At the same time that sustained efforts were made by the cultural authorities to suppress his work, it had the support and praise of the country’s most important literary critics.
After the collapse of the Ceaușescu dictatorship, several of his books started to be published in Romania. The publication in a Romanian translation of his essay Happy Guilt, which first appeared in The New Republic, led to a nationalist outcry in Romania, which he in turn has analysed in depth in his essay Blasphemy and Carnival. Echoes of this scandal can still be found in some articles of the current Romanian cultural press.
Meantime, in the United States and in European countries, Manea’s writing was received with great acclaim. Over the past two decades he has been proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature by literary and academic personalities and institutions in the United States, Sweden, Romania, Italy and France. Important contemporary writers expressed admiration of the author’s literary work and his moral stand before and after the collapse of communism: the Nobel laureates Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Octavio Paz, Orhan Pamuk, as well as Philip Roth, Claudio Magris, Antonio Tabucchi, E. M. Cioran, Antonio Munoz Molina, Cynthia Ozick, Louis Begley and others.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 14, 2025
Mai buna ca suplimentele cu melatonina.
E crestetul noptii si inca belesti ochii pe pereti? Deschide Captivi si garantat te va lua somnul in cinci.. patru..
Si Norman Manea se mira ca i-ar mai putea citi careva cartea azi, la 50+ ani de la publicare. Criptica, labirintica, ermetica. Te agati cu disperare de niste cadre, incerci sa orbecai prin scenele disparate, sa iti schitezi niste portrete de personaje. Abia reusesti sa prinzi un fir subtire cat o lita si deodata cinematografia se rastoarna si nu mai stii care a facut ce si cand si cum si cu cine si cum dracu’ a ajuns cartea asta in mainile mele. Numai spre final pare ca lucrurile se mai leaga, dar lejer, ca intr-o piftie cu handicap, fara prea multa gelatina, drept urmare te multumesti sa o sorbecai ca pe o ciorba pe jumate inchegata.
Autorul zice ca a scris-o intentionat in felul asta, ca a fost un experiment al vremii, si s-a aratat surprins cand i s-a publicat, cu numai cateva zeci de pagini cenzurate.
Cele cateva articole de critica in romana si engleza mentioneaza spiritul kafkian, dar pana la urma orice carte de nepriceput ajunge inevitabil in punctul asta de comparatie, asa ca nu as considera asta un reper valid.
Ramane fara echivoc talentul scriitoricesc in imaginile si trairile descrise, ceea ce e insuficient fiindca lectura e istovitoare si frustrarea ininteligibilului care se cladeste pe parcurs nu isi gaseste decat un debuseu lesinat in ultima parte a cartii.
E crestetul noptii si inca belesti ochii pe pereti? Deschide Captivi si garantat te va lua somnul in cinci.. patru..
Si Norman Manea se mira ca i-ar mai putea citi careva cartea azi, la 50+ ani de la publicare. Criptica, labirintica, ermetica. Te agati cu disperare de niste cadre, incerci sa orbecai prin scenele disparate, sa iti schitezi niste portrete de personaje. Abia reusesti sa prinzi un fir subtire cat o lita si deodata cinematografia se rastoarna si nu mai stii care a facut ce si cand si cum si cu cine si cum dracu’ a ajuns cartea asta in mainile mele. Numai spre final pare ca lucrurile se mai leaga, dar lejer, ca intr-o piftie cu handicap, fara prea multa gelatina, drept urmare te multumesti sa o sorbecai ca pe o ciorba pe jumate inchegata.
Autorul zice ca a scris-o intentionat in felul asta, ca a fost un experiment al vremii, si s-a aratat surprins cand i s-a publicat, cu numai cateva zeci de pagini cenzurate.
Cele cateva articole de critica in romana si engleza mentioneaza spiritul kafkian, dar pana la urma orice carte de nepriceput ajunge inevitabil in punctul asta de comparatie, asa ca nu as considera asta un reper valid.
Ramane fara echivoc talentul scriitoricesc in imaginile si trairile descrise, ceea ce e insuficient fiindca lectura e istovitoare si frustrarea ininteligibilului care se cladeste pe parcurs nu isi gaseste decat un debuseu lesinat in ultima parte a cartii.
March 13, 2015
wow, new directions really did a good thing getting this back in print, a 1970's romanian avantgarde novel. if you read nobel prize literature then you are in the right shelf area Mondo and Other Stories
this book is told in 3 parts, from multiple perspectives. separated into 1. "she" 2. "you" 3. "i"
read the translator note FIRST. just think, romanian, like spanish, can be very easily written and understood with pronouns. the tricky part comes with english. i don't know how jean harris did it http://translations.observatorcultura...
think of romania as a child;s sand box. a sadistic and perhaps future serial killer child's. and then imagine the 20th century and you are meticulously building up lives and cultures and people and then brccchcchcch wiping it out and starting over. and over and over again. old roman remnant > some empire liberalizations > end of empire > more liberalizations and modernisms > nazis > soviets > ceausescu > post-liberal > moldavia for gods sakes.
that's how this is. as good as the some of the greatest books written like Minuet for Guitar 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning
this book is told in 3 parts, from multiple perspectives. separated into 1. "she" 2. "you" 3. "i"
read the translator note FIRST. just think, romanian, like spanish, can be very easily written and understood with pronouns. the tricky part comes with english. i don't know how jean harris did it http://translations.observatorcultura...
think of romania as a child;s sand box. a sadistic and perhaps future serial killer child's. and then imagine the 20th century and you are meticulously building up lives and cultures and people and then brccchcchcch wiping it out and starting over. and over and over again. old roman remnant > some empire liberalizations > end of empire > more liberalizations and modernisms > nazis > soviets > ceausescu > post-liberal > moldavia for gods sakes.
that's how this is. as good as the some of the greatest books written like Minuet for Guitar 1941: The Year That Keeps Returning
April 14, 2015
I hope I'm not scaring anyone off when I say this, but this was one of the more difficult books that I've read in the last several years. Difficult, meaning I was rereading some sentences twice or three times in a row to make sure that I understood the full meaning. But that was also part of what made the book so rewarding. If I use the term like avant-garde to describe the reading experience that I had, I suspect a lot of people would be turned off, but in this case it's actually one of the best adjectives I could use, and maybe also one of the most appropriately praiseworthy things I could say about it. Much has been made of the fact that the book was written under a repressive regime, and that because of this, a great deal of what goes on had to be described in a very abstract way, so as to avoid censorship. But I think there is another reason why that was the approach the author took: there are some things that can only be said in an elliptical wave them to be truly effective. OK, OK, I know that sounds like a cop out, but this is one of the few books I've read that actually earns a description like that.
December 30, 2025
Luna aprilie o dedicam lui Norman Manea, iar romanul sau "Captivi" este primul pe care il citescde la acest autor di pot spune ca mi-a placut ii acord 4*.
Romanul a apărut în 1970 la o noua editura Cartea Românească, roman ce nu a corespuns cu repertoriul promovat de directivele de partid în literatură. Romanul "Captivi" a fost republicat după patruzeci de ani pentru seria de autor de la Polirom.
Teme romanului și de asemenea cele trei personaje principale sunt "captive" ale istoriei traumatice și a propriilor traume.
"Ea, Monica Snantanescu" asuma în modul cel mai direct intențiile naratorului.
Fiica fostului căpitan de artilerie Bogdan Zubcu, persoana a doua "Tu" a dialogului și infratirii. Și "Eu" ce se focalizează pe festinul unui tânăr inginer incarcat de amintirile lagărului copilăriei unde si-a pierdut surorile.
Romanul a apărut în 1970 la o noua editura Cartea Românească, roman ce nu a corespuns cu repertoriul promovat de directivele de partid în literatură. Romanul "Captivi" a fost republicat după patruzeci de ani pentru seria de autor de la Polirom.
Teme romanului și de asemenea cele trei personaje principale sunt "captive" ale istoriei traumatice și a propriilor traume.
"Ea, Monica Snantanescu" asuma în modul cel mai direct intențiile naratorului.
Fiica fostului căpitan de artilerie Bogdan Zubcu, persoana a doua "Tu" a dialogului și infratirii. Și "Eu" ce se focalizează pe festinul unui tânăr inginer incarcat de amintirile lagărului copilăriei unde si-a pierdut surorile.
December 29, 2020
Read my review at Publishers Weekly:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews