Gellu Naum


Gellu Naum was a Romanian poet, dramatist, novelist, children's writer, and translator. He is remembered as the founder of the Romanian Surrealist group. The artist Lyggia Naum, his wife, was the inspiration and main character in his 1985 novel Zenobia.

Biography

Of Aromanian descent, he was born in Bucharest, and was the son of the poet and his wife Maria Naum, née Rosa Gluck. In 1933, he began studying philosophy at the University of Bucharest. In 1938, he left for France, where he continued his studies at the University of Paris. He took his PhD diploma with a thesis on the scholastic philosopher Pierre Abelard.
In 1936, Naum met Victor Brauner, who became his close friend and who later introduced him to André Breton and his Surrealist circle in Paris.
In 1941, he helped create the Bucharest group of Surrealists. Naum was drafted into Romanian Army during World War II and served on the Eastern Front after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Marked by his wartime experience, he was discharged in 1944, after he had fallen ill.
In December 1947, the Surrealist group succumbed to the vicissitudes of postwar Soviet occupation and successful Communist takeover of Romania's government. As Socialist realism had officially become Romania's cultural policy, he could only publish books for children. Although he published several books in the line of Socialist realism, which he reneged on afterwards, he never stopped writing Surrealist poems, such as the 1958 poem composed of several parts Heraclitus or the esoteric manuscript The Way of the Snake, written in 1948–1949 and published after his death, in 2002.
Between 1950 and 1953, he taught philosophy at the Agronomic Institute of Bucharest, while working also as a translator. He translated works by Samuel Beckett, René Char, Denis Diderot, Alexandre Dumas, père, Julien Gracq, Victor Hugo, Franz Kafka, Gérard de Nerval, Jacques Prévert, Stendhal, and Jules Verne.
He resumed his literary career in 1968, in the wake of a relative cultural liberalization under Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime. In 1971 he was awarded the Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, 3rd class.
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he traveled abroad and gave public readings in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In 1995, the German Academic Exchange Service appointed him scholar at the University of Berlin. Naum spent much of his final years at his retreat in Comana. He died at in Bucharest at age 86; after a memorial service at Amzei Church, he was buried in the city's Bellu Cemetery.

Works

Drumețul incendiar, Bucharest, 1936 Vasco de Gama,, Bucharest, 1940 Culoarul somnului,, Bucharest, 1944 Medium, Bucharest, 1945 Critica mizeriei ), Bucharest, 1945 Teribilul interzis, Bucharest, 1945 Spectrul longevității: 122 de cadavre, Bucharest, 1946 Castelul Orbilor, Bucharest, 1946 L'infra-noir, Bucharest, 1947 Éloge de Malombra – Cerne de l'amour absolu, Bucharest, 1947Filonul, Bucharest, 1952 Tabăra din munți, Bucharest, 1953 Așa-i Sanda, Bucharest, 1956 Cartea cu Apolodor, Bucharest, 1959 Poem despre tinerețea noastră, Bucharest, 1960 Soarele calm, Bucharest, 1961 A doua carte cu Apolodor, Bucharest, 1964 Athanor, Bucharest, 1968 Poetizați, poetizați..., Bucharest, 1970Copacul-animal, Bucharest, 1971 Tatăl meu obosit, Bucharest, 1972 Poeme alese, Bucharest, 1974Cărțile cu Apolodor, Bucharest, 1975Descrierea turnului, Bucharest, 1975 Insula. Ceasornicăria Taus. Poate Eleonora, Bucharest, 1979 Partea cealaltă, Bucharest, 1980 Zenobia, Bucharest, 1985Amedeu, cel mai cumsecade leu, Bucharest, 1988 Apolodor, un mic pinguin călător, Bucharest, 1988 Malul albastru, Bucharest, 1990 Fața și suprafaţa, urmat de Malul albastru, Bucharest, 1994 Focul negru, Bucharest, 1995 Sora fântână, Bucharest, 1995 Întrebătorul, Bucharest, 1996 Copacul-animal, urmat de Avantajul vertebrelor, Cluj-Napoca, 2000 Ascet la baraca de tir, Bucharest, 2000Calea șearpelui, Bucharest, 2002

Presence in English language anthologies

Testament – Anthology of Romanian Verse – American Edition - monolingual English edition - Daniel Ioniță, with Eva Foster, Daniel Reynaud and Rochelle Bews – Australian-Romanian Academy for Culture – 2017 –