Biography
Born to a family of farmworkers in Bulzeşti, Dolj County, Sorescu graduated from the primary school in his home village. After that he went to the Buzesti Brothers High School in Craiova, after which he was transferred to the Predeal Military School. His final education was at the University of Iaşi, where, in 1960, he graduated with a degree in modern languages. His first book, a collection of parodies in 1964 entitled Singur printre poeţi ("Alone Among Poets"), was widely discussed. He himself called them "sarcastic and awkward". Ten volumes of poetry and prose followed, having a very rapid ascension in the world of literary, as a poet, novelist, playwright, essayist. He grew so popular that his readings were held in football stadiums.
On his poetry, Sorescu said, with characteristic irony: "Just as I can't give up smoking because I don't smoke, I can't give up writing because I have no talent." He often claimed a sense of alienation, saying "the spoken word is a crossed frontier. By the act of saying something, I fail to say many other things." On censorship, he said, after his last, post-1989 Revolution volumes were delayed, "we have won our freedom, so I mustn't complain. O censors, where are you now?"
Sorescu's collection of Censored Poems comprised poems could not be published until the end of the Nicolae Ceauşescu Communist dictatorship; of these, the best known is House under surveillance.
He disappointed some of his admirers by allowing himself to be made Minister of Culture by the unpopular National Salvation Front government between 1993 and 1995.
Ill with cirrhosis and hepatitis, he died from a heart attack at the Elias Hospital in Bucharest.
Read more about this topic: Marin Sorescu
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