Mircea Cărtărescu is an award-winning poet, novelist, literary critic, journalist, Professor Emeritus at the University of Bucharest, and member of the Romanian Writers’ Union, Romanian PEN, and the European Cultural Parliament. He has published over forty books and a large number of articles. Cărtărescu’s work has been translated into over twenty-five languages.
Mircea Cartarescu is Romania’s premier novelist and poet. His books have been translated in all major European languages. Nostalgia, from which “The Roulette Player” is excerpted, was published by New Directions in 2005. Cartarescu is a perennial favorite for the Nobel Prize for Literature.