An extract from Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter
Solenoid submerges us in the mundane details of a diarist’s life, and then spirals into a bizarre, existential account of history, philosophy and mathematics
Mircea Cărtărescu
Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian novelist, poet, short-story writer, literary critic and essayist
He has published more than 25 books of poetry, criticism and fiction. His work has received the Formentor Prize (2018), the Thomas Mann Prize (2018), the Austrian State Prize for Literature (2015), and the Vilenica Prize (2011), among many others, and has been translated into 23 languages. His novel Blinding was published by Archipelago Books in Sean Cotter’s English translation. Solenoid won the Dublin Literary Award in 2024 and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025.
A mind-boggling and ceaselessly entertaining book that seems to be about everything. It transports us from Communist Romania to the far sci-fi reaches of the imagination
— The 2025 judges on Solenoid
All nominated books
Solenoid submerges us in the mundane details of a diarist's life, and then spirals into a bizarre, existential account of history, philosophy and mathematics
