Fănuș Neagu
Ștefan Vasile "Fănuș" Neagu (5 April 1932 – 24 May 2011) was a Romanian novelist, playwright, journalist, and occasional film actor. Born to a peasant family in the Bărăgan Plain, he drew inspiration from that environment throughout his literary career. He undertook his training during the early stages of the communist regime, when he was still a teenager; in his early twenties, he was already pushing the limits of literary discourse, and the patience of ideological censors, acquiring his fame as an uncontainable rebel. Neagu's published debut came in 1959, and coincided with the onset of de-Stalinization. His short stories of the period pushed back against the influence of socialist realism, relying instead on neo-romantic and modernist models, as well as on Neagu's own resources as a raconteur. He became known, and received accolades, for a richly metaphorical and oftentimes absurdist prose, which integrated him into the tradition of magic realism; various critics remarked on his breaking the patterns of Romanian prose and his creation of a modern standard for the peasant-themed novella (announcing later works by Marin Preda), as well as on his contributing new means of expression in the Romanian language. The subtleties of this style also allowed Neagu to drop hints about communist crimes against the peasants in his debut novel, ''Îngerul a strigat'', which appeared, to critical acclaim, in 1968.A lifelong bohemian and habitual drinker, Neagu had an on-and-off career in the press—in the 1960s, he was mainly an editor at ''Luceafărul'', whereby he encouraged younger authors; with time, he specialized in covering Romanian football, with columns that were admired for their skill and greatly loved by the reading public. He used these experiences in the 1976 ''Frumoșii nebuni ai marilor orașe'', which condensed various narrative levels and became a best-seller of its day. By the late 1970s, Neagu had also involved himself with Romanian cinema—as a screenwriter, he went from being derided for his superficial comedies to being praised for dramas based on his own novellas and novels. As a literary celebrity, he had a complex relationship with Nicolae Ceaușescu, who had emerged as communist leader in 1965: though welcoming Ceaușescu's national-communist ideology (both in replicating some of its assumptions, including the revival of nationalism, and in not resisting its July Theses), he was resentful of the entire Ceaușescu family, and continued to speak his mind about some of the regime's excesses. He was kept under watch by the Securitate secret police, but also enjoyed protection—as a Dinamo-supporting journalist, he endeared himself to the overarching Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The revolution of December 1989 witnessed a critical reevaluation of Neagu's contribution, raising issues about the diminishing quality of his prose, now perceived as incoherent, repetitive, or "kitsch". He was additionally targeted for his politics, in particular after joining a left-wing nationalist and anti-capitalist caucus that supported Ion Iliescu's post-revolutionary administration. After being active within the Democratic Agrarian Party, Neagu became a committed supporter (and alleged client) of Iliescu's Social Democrats. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he generated controversy as manager of the National Theater Bucharest, as well as editor in chief of several publications, including ' and '. His answers to criticism became increasingly violent; though made a full member of the Romanian Academy in 2001, he was further isolated when he also came to reject Iliescu's policies. Incapacitated and hospitalized during the final years of his life, Neagu chronicled his declining health, and his indifference to dying, in a set of diaries, the final one of which was published posthumously. Provided by Wikipedia
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