The world changed around Emil Sîrbulescu, and Shakespeare changed along with it. This volume of living memoir records a lifelong commitment to the work of Europe's greatest playwright: first under the version of communism imposed by Ceaușescu, and then in the wider and more contradictory world that opened up to Romanian intellectuals after 1989. The book captures a remarkable intellectual journey through exceptional times, as the author ventures further and further across the globe and penetrates deeper and deeper into Shakespeare's universe. Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon and Professor of Shakespearean Studies, University of Birmingham Emil Sîrbulescu (b. 1949), University Professor at the Department of Anglo-American and German Studies of the University of Craiova. Doctor of Philology (1997), with a thesis on the African-American novel. Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University and at the Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, D.C.). He has conducted research internships in the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and the United States and has been a visiting professor in Japan. Translator into Romanian of Thackeray, George Eliot, Kipling, Charlotte Yonge, Ursula Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson and Charlaine Harris, he is the author of volumes and studies dedicated to English literature, African-American literature and the work of Shakespeare.
