ABOUT
THE BOOK

Translated from the Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth

2020 Longlist

The year is 1959, one of the darkest periods of Romania’s communist regime. Political prisoner Bruno Matei, a puppeteer of Italian ancestry, has been released from jail a broken man, suffering from amnesia. An uneasy relationship forms between ‘Matei Brunul’ and Bojin, the secret policeman who keeps him under constant surveillance. Gradually, the secret police try to remold Matei’s mind by rewriting his past. In parallel, a harrowing second narrative reveals Matei’s prison experiences.

About the Author

Lucian Dan Teodorovici is a novelist, author of short fiction, and screenwriter. His novel Our Circus Presents was published in English translation by Dalkey Archive Press in 2009. Matei Brunul (2011) has earned widespread critical acclaim in Romania and won a number of major international awards including the Augustin Fratila literary prize.

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