Vlad Zografi: From science to literature
– Romania
An author of drama, prose and essays and a translator. Vlad Zografi was born in 1960 in Bucharest. He graduated from the Faculty of Physics of Bucharest University and received his PhD in nuclear physics in Paris. Instead of pursuing a career in science, he chose to become a writer for the Bucharest publishing house Humanitas. “I feel the Romanian language inside me as an organ which cannot be transplanted.” He became publicly known thanks to his 1995 theatrical play Petru sau Petele din soare (Tsar Peter or the Spots in the Sun) which uses the backdrop of Peter the Great’s visit to Paris to contemplate the eternal opposition of the East and the West. In his prose, he frequently explores the theme of moral decadence through the characters of outcast intellectuals and people failing in their emotional and professional lives. This is the case for example in the polyphone novel Efecte secundare ale vieţii (The Side Effects of Life, 2016) and Şapte Octombrie (The Seventh of October, 2018), whose protagonist humbly admits: “I was born without a warranty certificate and instructions for use.”