WINNER OF THE BOOKZONE PRIZE FOR BOOK OF THE YEAR
An unlikely couple meet in 1970s Bucharest – a student from Cameroon and a young Romanian woman, whose child Gigi Ibrahim is the main character of THE BLACK SUN. Also starring: an evil psychiatrist recruited by the KGB; a gay Nazi, a member of the Thule Society, hunting down priceless magical artifacts for occult rituals meant to bring about the Third Reich; a strange seamstress of the Diana Fashion House, fallen prey to demons; an Orthodox Christian mother passionate about martial arts; a melancholic German writer named Max Sebald; the narrow, cobbled streets of Norwich; 1990s Sulina; Cameroonian socialists; a Russian puppeteer who collects trophies with which he falls in love; an unfinished novel that irradiates the lives of those who read it. All of these intertwine in the multigenerational biography of Gigi, who is passionate about serial killers and longs for his missing father.
“THE BLACK SUN asks what are the mechanisms of memory, the reality of memory vs. that of the world, the political and social evolution of a country in south-eastern Europe between 1980 and 2020, the city of Bucharest, the mystery of what constitutes family,” says the author.
‘THE BLACK SUN is not only one of the great novels of our generation, or of contemporary literature, but one of the greatest novels of Romanian literature ever. Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu writes beautiful, profound, wide-ranging things that change the whole order of literature “. Radu Vancu, writer, poet, professor, former president of PEN Romania
‘Stănescu juggles with concepts like light and darkness, but he does not see them as opposing forces, but rather as inner states that intertwine in each of us… The author presents his ideas in a natural and direct way. You don’t find pompous phrases or wooden academic language, but a natural, organic prose, close to the way you talk to friends on a terrace in the afternoon. This makes THE BLACK SUN feel authentic, like a sincere conversation, where there is no need for filters or literary artifice… A truly special literary experience. We need books like lighthouses lit during a storm.’ Liternautica
‘This is the novel in which the author Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu reaches his full maturity. I consider it the best Romanian novel of the year 2024… one that consolidates the author’s place among the great contemporary Romanian prose writers.’ Orizont Magazine
‘What makes THE BLACK SUN special is the feeling that all things can happen to you. Although sometimes you feel like you’re living a dream, you actually come to realize that this is reality, that all the characters are archetypes with a life of their own who tell their story from A to Z with a lightness that only Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu can control, as he has shown us in his previous novels. THE BLACK SUN is a testimony to the way dreams, lucid or absurd, are part of our lives, counting them through joys and sorrows, tragedies and acts of heroism. From the slums of Bucharest, to the cool beaches of Constanta, to the Russian laboratories of World War II, the novel is an index of memory that urges us to reflect on the present.’ Alexandru Higyed, poet
‘THE BLACK SUN is, for me, the peak of his trilogy!’ Alina Pavelescu, writer and historian
‘By far, the best prose book of the past year is THE BLACK SUN by Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu. This novel is the third book in the trilogy of family and memory that began in 2017 with THE CHILDHOOD OF KASPAR HAUSER, continued in 2022 with the novel ABRAXAS. Together with the other two books, THE BLACK SUNis a book that has considerably raised the bar of Romanian prose in recent years, a book that can show what is possible in our prose, which gives scope to an entire literature. I am sure that Ibrahim, the protagonist with a multiracial origin, is one of the most memorable characters given by Romanian literature post-1990. Here, this book also tells the story of the desperate search for a ghostly father, a father who disappears and whose disappearance leaves behind an immense void, a search that sets in motion the huge mechanism of literature. I am sure that this will be the theme that will dominate an important part of the prose in the coming years. All I will say for now about THE BLACK SUN is that it offers us a broad epic construction, in which the recent history of the end of communism and the Romanian transition appear fused, but also other surprising elements, counterfactual stories, in which we find fictionally integrated elements of the biography of the great German writer WG Sebald and his relationship with the chimera of his own father. As a devoted Sebaldian, I admit that I had great reading satisfaction in this part of the book, which seems to be an immense narrative network generating infinite stories. I will return to THE BLACK SUN. The limited space of a review text does not allow me a complex description of this fabulous book.’ Observator Cultural, Best fiction of 2024
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