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‘I took literary revenge against the people who stole my youth’: Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu | Fiction | The Guardian

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As the first part of his acclaimed Blinding trilogy is released in the UK, the novelist talks about communism, Vladimir Nabokov – and those Nobel rumours I n 2014, when he was travelling around the US on a book tour, Mircea Cărtărescu was able to fulfil the dream of a lifetime: a tour of Vladimir Nabokov’s butterfly collection. Cărtărescu is a great admirer of the Russian-American author, and shares with him a literary career that bridges the western and eastern cultural spheres – as well as a history of being mooted as the next Nobel literature laureate but never having won it. Above all, the Romanian poet and novelist shares Nabokov’s fascination with butterflies. As a child, he harboured dreams of becoming a lepidopterist. On a visit to Harvard, Cărtărescu was allowed access to Nabokov’s former office and marvelled at specimens the St Petersburg-born author had collected. “His most important scientific work was about butterflies’ sexual organs, and I saw these very tiny vials with t

‘My father set fire to his red party book’ … Mircea Cărtărescu. Photograph: Leonardo Cendamo View image in fullscreen ‘My father set fire to his red party book’ … Mircea Cărtărescu. Photograph: Leonardo Cendamo Fiction This article is more than 7 months old Interview ‘I took literary revenge against the people who stole my youth’: Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu This article is more than 7 months old Philip Oltermann As the first part of his acclaimed Blinding trilogy is released in the UK, the novelist talks about communism, Vladimir Nabokov – and those Nobel rumours Sun 30 Nov 2025 07.00 E

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