Invited Speakers

Ion Lazu

Writer, Writers’ Union of Romania Bucharest, Romania

PRESENTATION: Romanian Writers in the First World War. Commemorative Plaque With The Writers That

                           Took Part In The Union War 1916-1918

                            American Journal II

Ion Lazu was born on the 6th of January 1940, in the Ciobârciu commune, Tighina jurisdiction to Grigore and Vera (born Ciobanu), landowners and retailers. On his mother’s side, I.L. is related to Ştefan Ciobanu, a professor of Ancient Literature History, director of the Al. Russo High school from Chishinev, one of the artisans of the Union of 1918, and later on Minister of Culture and Religion. In March 1944 the writer’s family took refuge from the advancing front lines, settling in the Cireaşov commune, Olt jurisdiction. He attended primary school in the adoptive village, the secondary classes in the Ionaşcu School of Slatina, followed by the Radu Greceanu High school in the same city, graduating in 1956. In the same year he became a student of the Faculty of Geology and Geography of the University of Bucharest, from where he graduated in 1961, when he became a prospector-geologist at an institute in his field from the capital city, from where he eventually retired in 1999, after 38 years of uninterrupted activity, practiced in all the regions of the country. He was never a party member, nor did he have any administrative duties. He is proud of his Romanian nationality and citizenship. As of 1996, chief editor of the Vinea Publishing House.

In 1980 he married Lidia Dugă (n.1953), a graduate of the Popular School of the Arts from Bucharest, with a specialization in theatre. She is the author of 4 poem albums. Together they have a son, Andrei Laurențiu Lazu.

I.L. made his debut with poems in the magazine Ateneu in December 1964 and kept publishing short stories and poems. He never published anything in the Communist press. Due to a favorable review from “Free Europe“ for “Only good things about the living“ all his manuscripts were blackballed between 1971 and 1979. With a ten year delay, he published them in the following years.

One of his greatest achievements is the novel “The Strangers“ (“Veneticii“). Here’s what Ștefan Ion Ghilimescu thought of this novel:

“Without being afraid I might be wrong, I shall signal to the reader in Ion Lazu's remarkable novel Veneticii, an author topic for the first time treated in our literature namely the historical refuge of Bessarabian Romanians since 1944 and the odyssey of their survival. Running as a large and lazy stream, written with maximum attention, and severely controlled at the idea level, somewhat situated at the limit of stylistic accuracy of a vaguely symbolic channel, Veneticii is one of the best 10 novels written in our country during the last twenty years.“