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Manea’s Shadows

JL;DR SUMMARY Norman Manea, a prominent Romanian author from the historic Jewish community of Bukovina, navigates themes of memory, identity, and survival in his literary works. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

HolocaustJewish IdentityBard CollegeNazismExilePhilip RothNorman ManeaCommunismBukovinaRomanian Literature

Places mentioned

Czernowitz, Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine
"Traian Popovici, the then-mayor of Czernowitz, Bukovinas capital, remarked that scenes from the deportations could be from the pages of Dantes Inferno."
Ukraine
"When Maneas grandparents died of typhus soon after arriving in the camp, he began imagining his own death."
Suceava, Romania
"The young hooligan at four years old, 1940, Suceava."
Berlin, Germany
"At the age of five, Manea recalls, on my way to the camp, the war-like word Berlin brutally crushed my innocence."
Jerusalem, Israel
"What if I had been born and lived there, in Jerusalem? he mused."
New York, United States
"When they met the next year, at the Essex House in New York, Manea gave Roth an English translation of his story Prousts Tea."
Hudson, New York, United States
"In Exiled Shadow, Manea adopts a prismatic style that reflects the fractured identity of his Manea-like protagonist, whose memories flicker as he moves between Bukovina, Berlin, and the banks of the Hudson."
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Retrieved 2025-04-07 05:30:41 UTC
Curated 2025-04-07 08:33:19 UTC