Danubius International Conferences, 7th International Conference The Danube - Axis of European Identity
Panait Istrati - Adventurer and Writer
Last modified: 2017-06-26
Abstract
Panait Istrati - the "vagabond" born in Brăila - is a totally atypical personality in Romanian literature. He graduated only four elementary grades and Eugen Lovinescu considered him the only writer in our literature with "14 jobs lacking intellectuality."
In 1907 he left Romania clandestinely and for a long time he traveled to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Turkey, France, Switzerland. For a great while, the man Panait Istrati was one of the mysterious figures of the interwar period.
This "Balkan Gorki", as Romain Rolland called him, was translated into 30 languages, in countries like Turkey, France, Denmark, Portugal, Japan, former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
The Danube of his hometown was to mark his wandering soul for ever and his life was always under the sign of adventure, exploration, feeling, knowledge and revolutionary ideas. Even if he was sick or hungry, homeless, sunburnt or frostbitten, Panait Istrati never gave up fighting and always felt a fascinating voluptuousness of life
