Sami Damian


Sami Damian was a Romanian-born Jewish literary critic and essayist.

Biography

Studies

S. Damian studied at the Jewish "Cultura Max Aziel" middle school in Bucharest, then at the "Mihai Eminescu" Literature and Literary Criticism School in Bucharest, and at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest.

Literary activity

S. Damian made his debut around 1955/1956 with literary criticism written in the spirit of that age's dogmatism.
He worked for a while as a copy editor for Contemporanul, Gazeta literară, România literară and Luceafărul.
Marginalised for a period of time, he was sent to West Germany in the mid-1970s to teach Romanian language and literature at the University of Heidelberg, after which he defected. He would continue to teach there until 1995.
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he published several books of literary criticism, essays, etc.
He married Simona Timaru-Druckmann in 1996.
In 1998 Ion Negoițescu's book Dialoguri după tăcere. Scrisori către S. Damian was published.
He had a twin brother, Marcel.

Books

Generalitatea și individualitatea ideii operei literare, 1955Încercări de analiză literară, 1956Direcții și tendințe în proza nouă, 1963Intrarea în castel, București, 1970G. Călinescu romancier. Eseu despre măștile jocului, 1971Scufița Roșie nu mai merge în pădure, 1994Fals tratat despre psihologia succesului, 1972; ediția București, 1995Duelul invizibil, 1996 Replici din burta lupului, București, 1997Aruncând mănușa, București, 1999Pivnițe, mansarde, nu puține trepte, 2002Aripile lui Icar, 2004Trepte în sus, trepte în jos, 2006Păr de aur, păr de cenușă, 2007Nu toți copacii s-au înălțat la cer, 2010Zbor aproape de pământ, 2008

Awards