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
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
Grounded in the reality of communist Romania, the novel grapples with frightening health care, the absurdities of the education system and the struggles of family life, while investigating other universes and forking paths.
In a surreal journey like no other, we visit a tuberculosis preventorium, an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators and a minuscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide. Combining fiction and history with autobiography – the book is partly based on Cărtărescu’s experiences as a teacher – Solenoid searches for escape routes through the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various monstrous realities erupt within the present.
Mircea Cărtărescu
About the Author
Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian novelist, poet, short-story writer, literary critic and essayist
Sean Cotter
About the Translator
Sean Cotter is a translator and professor of literature and translation at the University of Texas at DallasA 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
What the judges said
Solenoid is uncategorisable epic of interconnected realities, a book that seems to be about… everything. On a single page you might be flung from intimate insights into the banality of a teacher’s life to grand theoretical re-imaginings of the universe, to microscopic insights into mites, matter, love or letter-forms. It’s a mind-boggling, bravura and ceaselessly entertaining book, unlike anything else. The translation struck us as word perfect, a feat of attention to detail that transports us with total control from Communist Romania to the far sci-fi reaches of the imagination and back again.
What the critics said
Dustin Illingworth, The New York Times
‘“Solenoid” is an instant classic of literary body horror. It is divinely, wondrously gross. (Sean Cotter’s translation, excellent throughout, is especially good in its technical vocabulary, rendering the stuff of the body with a mad anatomist’s glee.) From its opening lines, the novel highlights the odious amid the mundane.’
Ben Hooyman, Los Angeles Review of Books
‘The writing itself is hypnotic and gorgeously captures the oneiric quality of Cărtărescu’s Bucharest. Moreover, as it’s a key component of the whole package, Cotter’s English rendering of the original Romanian warrants special mention. Cărtărescu’s intricately constructed image systems and conceptual play are sophisticated enough without being bogged down by knotty syntax and swampy sentence construction. Cotter’s translation is attentive to the efficiency of Cărtărescu’s ornate but surprisingly approachable prose, gliding from sentence to sentence and calling little attention to itself. The sheer immensity of Cotter’s undertaking combined with the unfailing evenness of the translation’s quality is nothing short of remarkable.’
Alex Lanz, Asymptote
‘Solenoid is ambitious, esoteric, grotesque, sometimes grisly, and constantly brandishing a surly egotism worthy of Dostoevsky’s underground man. It could well be one of the most successful pieces of fabulism in recent decades. And as we’ll see, it serves as a kind of summation of surrealism, as well as the major trends of twentieth-century thought that accompanied the history of modernist art.’
Will Self, The Nation
‘His novel Solenoid has a relentless preoccupation with subjectivity. But unlike his peers’ self-obsession, Cărtărescu’s is not concomitant with the mere piling up of perceptual factoids. If anything, he aims to do the opposite: While introducing us to a protagonist who is not unlike himself, Cărtărescu has written a novel about a self that is decidedly not synonymous with its author.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘Cărtărescu writes poetically and philosophically (“What visceral and metaphysical mechanism converts the objective into the subjective?”), and while the story doesn’t always add up, it’s full of arresting images and eldritch twists that would do Umberto Eco proud. A masterwork of Kafkaesque strangeness, brilliantly conceived and written.’
