The Diaries of Fănuș Neagu

In his final years, starting from 2002, Fănuș Neagu introspected on his existence through journal entries. Published in 2004 by Editura Semne in Bucharest (225 pages, 12 x 17 cm format), Jurnal cu fața ascunsă encompasses the writer’s comments from 10 August 2002 to 10 July 2004. Nearly a decade later, in 2013, Muzeul Literaturii Române Publishing House released Neagu’s notes from 9 January 2005 to 7 May 2011, in a posthumous second volume, comprising 358 pages in a 13 x 20 cm format. Compelled to adapt to unfavourable circumstances – hospitalised and with increasingly fragile health – the writer developed the habit of gathering his daily thoughts in the pages of diaries, similar in type and format to those given as gifts at the beginning of the year. These diaries had the advantage of being bound between sturdy covers, with ample space for daily annotations. The number of these diaries exceeds forty, offering a spectacle in themselves through their varying sizes, colours and thicknesses, as well as through their content. Categorising these diaries into a “thematic” formula is challenging, as they simultaneously serve as the creative laboratory for his last novel (Asfințit de Europă, răsărit de Asie), an intimate journal, and contain numerous comments on recent readings (he would read two to three books daily). Additionally, the diaries refer to the events happening around him. The diarist is remarkably sincere. Above all, these diaries reveal the surprising, ineffable artistic style of Fănuș Neagu, who writes in two languages: Romanian and his own unique language.