Anatol E. Baconsky

Who was Anatol E. Baconsky?

Anatol E. Baconsky, also known as A. E. Bakonsky, Baconschi or Baconski, was a Romanian modernist poet, essayist, translator, novelist, publisher, literary and art critic. Praised for his late approach to poetry and prose, which transgresses the genres and introduces an aestheticized, original and progressively dark perspective to Romanian literature, he was also criticized for his early commitment to Socialist Realism and communism. Much of his work belongs to the field of travel literature, recording his experiences in the Eastern Bloc, the Far East and Soviet Union, and finally Central Europe. He was also a critically acclaimed translator of foreign works, including the Mahābhārata and poems by Jorge Semprún, Artur Lundkvist and others, the author of world literature anthologies, and the editor of monographs on Romanian and foreign painters.

After a brief affiliation to Surrealism in the 1940s, Baconsky was a prominent supporter of the communist regime who joined its cultural establishment. In the mid-1950s, he grew disillusioned with communist guidelines—this attitude was notably manifested in his activity as editor of the Cluj-based magazine Steaua, his 1972 public reaction against the norms imposed by the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime, and his samizdat novel Biserica neagră. Having spent much of final years in Austria and West Berlin, where he became a critic of consumerism, Baconsky died in Bucharest, a victim of the 1977 earthquake.