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
Sean Cotter
Sean Cotter is a translator and professor of literature and translation at the University of Texas at Dallas
A two-time National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, Cotter is the translator of 11 books, including T. O. Bobe’s Curl and Nichita Stanescu’s Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems, which received the Best Translated Book Award for Poetry in 2013. His translation of Magda Cârneci’s FEM, a finalist for the PEN Translation Award, was published by Deep Vellum in 2021.
His English-language translation of Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu 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
Translated by Sean Cotter
