An Evening with Romanian Jewish Author Norman Manea

Norman Manea, Romania's most famous contemporary author, twice has survived the grip of totalitarian regimes. No stranger to exile, he mines its complexities and disorientations in his extraordinarily compelling novel, The Lair. Exile in the motherland and away from it is the shared plight of his protagonists. Nowhere at home, they move through their lives in a continuous, ever-elusive quest for national and individual identity. Manea's characters seek a place and a voice in America, only to discover that the shackles of their native totalitarian and nationalist ideologies are impossible to break. Manea, a Professor of European Culture and writer-in-residence at Bard College as well as a winner of several important cultural and literary prizes, will be on stage in conversation with YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent.