Fănuș Neagu

Early life

Ștefan Neagu was born on 5 April 1932 at Grădiștea, Brăila County, in what was then the Kingdom of Romania. His was a peasant family, and he remained attached spiritually to both that social class and the geographical contours of the Bărăgan. As he himself put it in a 1987 interview: "The people, the water, the grassland of that spot are what's dearest to me in the world." His parents Vasile and Paraschiva (née Miroslav) knew him under the pet name "Fănuș", which became his favorite signature, as well as a mononym in the literary community: "few people know that his other name was Neagu." The future writer had a brother and a sister; only the latter was still alive at Fănuș's death in 2011. In old age, Neagu liked to tell highly exaggerated stories of his childhood poverty, to see if those present would believe them—for instance, he circulated the claim that his feet had been bound, so that his parents would not have to spend money on shoes. In other contexts, he described his childhood as "fabulous" and rich in life lessons. His childhood friends, many of whom appear in his work under their nicknames, included both Romanians and Romanies, as he reportedly "made no difference". Aged eleven, he traveled to the local port city, Brăila, for which he preserved an "all-consuming love" throughout his life. As a "country lad", he was especially fascinated with its cosmopolitanism, discovering its community of seafaring Greeks as an introduction to the "great adventure".

The boy completed primary school in his village at the height of World War II. His father had been mobilized in the Romanian Land Forces, and Paraschiva had to provide for her children. In 1944, she obtained Fănuș a scholarship for the Military High School, which had been moved from Iași to Câmpulung. He arrived there by train, alongside Wehrmacht soldiers who "fed me all the way there". Shortly after, a palace coup chased out the Wehrmacht, and opened the country up for Soviet occupation. Neagu had positive memories of his personal encounter with the Red Army, who also provided him with food. He and his school resettled in Iași after this military realignment, and it was during his time there that he penned his first stories. He graduated in 1948, just as Romania was coming under a communist regime and a socialist army was being formed. Called up to Bucharest, he reportedly arrived there carrying his belongings in wooden suitcases, and for a while lived in townhouse basements.

By his own account, Neagu was for a while a semi-professional player of table tennis, whose greatest ranking was inclusion on Romania's national youth team. Now pursuing a career in teaching, he was trained at normal schools, first in Bucharest (where his teachers included a published poet, Emil Giurgiuca) and then in Galați. His education was supposed to be fulfilled at the Eminescu School of Literature, which he attended in 1951–1952; he also joined its volleyball team. During this time, he lived "more clandestinely than not", with Nicolae Velea and other young authors, in a small apartment at 13 Roma Street. He was also colleagues with three other authors noted for their talent: Radu Cosașu, Nicolae Labiș, and Ion Băieșu, the latter of whom became his good friend. In old age, he recalled that his literary style was shaped by foreign sources, primarily the major figures of Russian literature, and in part by the local tradition—specifically, through his readings from Mihail Sadoveanu, George Mihail Zamfirescu, Vasile Voiculescu, and Panait Istrati. He also defended the School of Literature, which had come to be derided as a communist institution: "I would not be the present-day Fănuș Neagu without [its influence]."