Norman Manea is Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer-in-residence at Bard College. Deported from his native Romania to a Ukrainian concentration camp during World War Two, he was again forced to leave Romania in 1986, no longer safe under an intolerant Communist dictatorship. Since arriving in the West he has received many awards, including the Star of Romania, awarded by the Romanian president in 2016. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City. Patrick Camiller has translated many works, including Dumitru Tsepeneag’s Vain Art of the Fugue, The Necessary Marriage, and Hotel Europa.

“Reading The Black Envelope, one might think of the poisonous ‘black milk’ of Celan’s ‘Death Fugue’ or the claustrophobic air of mounting terror in Mr. Appelfeld’s ‘Badenheim 1939.’ . . . Mr. Manea offers striking images and insights into the recent experience of Eastern Europe.”—New York Times Book Review

Norman Manea is Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer-in-residence at Bard College. Deported from his native Romania to a Ukrainian concentration camp during World War Two, he was again forced to leave Romania in 1986, no longer safe under an intolerant Communist dictatorship. Since arriving in the West he has received many awards, including the Star of Romania, awarded by the Romanian president in 2016. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City. Patrick Camiller has translated many works, including Dumitru Tsepeneag’s Vain Art of the Fugue, The Necessary Marriage, and Hotel Europa.

“Reading The Black Envelope, one might think of the poisonous ‘black milk’ of Celan’s ‘Death Fugue’ or the claustrophobic air of mounting terror in Mr. Appelfeld’s ‘Badenheim 1939.’ . . . Mr. Manea offers striking images and insights into the recent experience of Eastern Europe.”—New York Times Book Review

Norman Manea is Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer-in-residence at Bard College. Deported from his native Romania to a Ukrainian concentration camp during World War Two, he was again forced to leave Romania in 1986, no longer safe under an intolerant Communist dictatorship. Since arriving in the West he has received many awards, including the Star of Romania, awarded by the Romanian president in 2016. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City. Patrick Camiller has translated many works, including Dumitru Tsepeneag’s Vain Art of the Fugue, The Necessary Marriage, and Hotel Europa.

“Reading The Black Envelope, one might think of the poisonous ‘black milk’ of Celan’s ‘Death Fugue’ or the claustrophobic air of mounting terror in Mr. Appelfeld’s ‘Badenheim 1939.’ . . . Mr. Manea offers striking images and insights into the recent experience of Eastern Europe.”—New York Times Book Review