Nicolae Breban

He is the son of Vasile Breban, a Greek Catholic priest in the village of Recea, Maramureș County. His mother, Olga Constanţa Esthera Breban, born Böhmler, descended from a family of German merchants who emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine. In 1951, he was expelled from school on account of his social origin when in the penultimate year at the „Coriolan Brediceanu” High School in Lugoj. He worked as an office clerk in Oradea, and finally passed the graduation exams at the „Oltea Doamna” High School. As he intended to study at the Polytechnical Institute, he had to work first as an apprentice at the "23 August” Works in Bucharest. He enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy by „forging personal documents” as he candidly admitted in Confesiuni violente ("Violent Confessions"). His reading of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer made him, in fact, suspicious in the eyes of Dean Athanase Joja. He made his literary debut in „Viaţa studenţească” (no. 5, May 1957), with the sketch Doamna din vis ("The Lady in the Dream").

At the 10th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, held between 6 and 12 August 1969, he was elected a substitute member of the Central Committee. Beginning with issue no. 20 of 14 May 1970, he was editor-in-chief of the literary review România literară, around which he attracted some of Romania's most important writers. In 1971, the première of the movie Printre colinele verzi/Among the Green Hills (written and directed by Nicolae Breban), the film version of Sick Animals, took place. The communist authorities were quite annoyed by this movie, but it was nevertheless included in the official selection for the International Festival of Cannes. While in Paris, Nicolae Breban remained shocked by the so-called "July Theses”, by means of which Nicolae Ceauşescu, following the Maoist model, was trying to start some kind of Cultural Revolution. The writer publicly repudiated the cultural policy of the Romanian regime in a number of interviews published in the Western media, and, in protest, resigned his position as editor-in-chief of "România literară”. Back home, in 1972, the communist authorities regarded him as an outcast. He was therefore marginalized, watched by the police, and not allowed to travel abroad again until 1975, despite having also acquired German citizenship that year. Without actually becoming an exile, he lived mostly in Paris with his wife, Cristina, between 1986 and 1989. He returned to Romania, and in 1990 launched a new series of the literary review "Contemporanul. Ideea europeană". On 24 October 1997, he became a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy, and on 14 January 2009, a full member.

• The „Ion Creangă” Award of the Romanian Academy (1965)
• The Romanian Writers' Union Award (1968)
• The Romanian Writers' Union Award (1994)
• The Romanian Writers' Union Award „Opera Omnia” (2000)

• Marian Victor Buciu, Breban. Eseu despre stratagemele supravieţuirii narative (Breban. An Essay on the Stratagems of Narrative Survival), Craiova, Editura Sitech, 1996
• Laura Pavel, Antimemoriile lui Grobei. Eseu monografic despre opera lui Nicolae Breban (The Antimemoires of Grobei. A Monographic Essay on the Oeuvre of Nicolae Breban), Bucharest, Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică, „Akademos”, 1997, the 2nd edition, Bucharest, Editura Ideea Europeană, 2004
• Liviu Maliţa, Nicolae Breban, micromonography, Braşov, Editura Aula, colecţia „Canon”, 2001
• Dicţionarul scriitorilor români (The Dictionary of the Romanian Writers), edited by Mircea Zaciu, Marian Papahagi, Aurel Sasu, A-C, Bucharest, Editura Fundaţiei Culturale Române, 1995
• Dicţionarul esenţial al scriitorilor români (The Essential Dictionary of the Romaniana Writers), Bucharest, Editura Albatros, 2000
• Dicţionarul general al literaturii române (The General Dictionary of the Romanian Literature), edited by: Eugen Simion, A-B, Bucharest, Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 2004
• Dicţionar analitic de opere literare româneşti (Analytical Dictionary of Romanian Literary Works), edited by: Ion Pop, final edition, Cluj, Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, 2007

• Interview by Edgar Reichmann, in „UNESCO Courier”, June, 1995
• (in Romanian) Laura Pavel, in „Apostrof”, no. 10, October 2005
• (in Romanian) Ion Simuţ, in „România literară”, no. 40, October 12, 2007
• (in Romanian) Review by Gabriel Dimisianu, in „România literară”, no. 8, February 29, 2008

• (in Romanian) Revista Contemporanul
• (in Romanian) Editura Polirom
• Contemporary Romanian Writers