Solenoid
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Based on Cărtărescu’s own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist’s life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. On a broad scale, the novel’s investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art. The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life.Combining fiction with autobiography and history, Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art within the Communist present.
2024 JUDGES’ COMMENTS
“we can imagine (it not fully grasp) a world that has, in comparison to our own, an extra dimension.” In some respects, this is the world of Solenoid. The city of Bucharest in which the narrator is a teacher and failed writer is a place in which what appears to be an abandoned factory contains unexpected caverns, tunnels and a gallery of enormous parasites, where an apparently ordinary, run-down house is built upon an electrical device that causes people lying in bed to float. By turns wildly inventive, philosophical, and lyrical, with passages of great beauty, Solenoid is the work of a major European writer who is still relatively little known to English-language readers. Sean Cotter’s translation of the novel sets out to change that situation, capturing the lyrical precision of the original, thereby opening up Cărtărescu’s work to an entirely new readership.
‘An anti-novel that for all intents and purposes should not exist but still does despite itself, thanks to the overpowering talents of the author and the translator.’ — Anton Hur, 2024 Dublin Literary Award Judge
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Sean
Cotter
Sean Cotter is a translator and professor of literature and translation at the University of Texas at Dallas. A previous National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, Cotter is the translator of 11 books, including T.O. Bobe’s Curl and Nichita Stănescu’s Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems, which was awarded the Best Translated Book Award for Poetry. His translation of Magda Cârneci’s FEM, a finalist for the PEN Translation Award, was published by Deep Vellum in 2021.
Sean Cotter is a translator and professor of literature and translation at the University of Texas at Dallas. A previous National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, Cotter is the translator of 11 books, including T.O. Bobe’s Curl and Nichita Stănescu’s Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems, which was awarded the Best Translated Book Award for Poetry. His translation of Magda Cârneci’s FEM, a finalist for the PEN Translation Award, was published by Deep Vellum in 2021.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Mircea Cărtărescu is one of the contemporary Romanian writers whose writings have a high impact on the readers. His books which are available in our library collection have been borrowed over 3,200 times. His novel ”Solenoid” had been borrowed more than 100 times.