Pandemic Biopolitics in Romanian Literature

Abstract

Pandemic Biopolitics in Romanian Literature. The biopolitics of the COVID pandemic years has had a powerful impact on all areas of activity, including literature and the arts. Contagion and isolation quickly became the governing terms of social interaction, and writers promptly echoed their impact in works that tried to capture the spirit of the time as it was unfolding. Romanian writers were particularly prompt in responding to the challenges of this unprecedented crisis in modern decades, therefore the first pandemic writings were published in the later months of 2020. Florina Ilis’ Pandemia veselă și tristă (The Happy and Sad Pandemic, Polirom, 2020), Teodor Hossu-Longin’s Măștile din spatele măștii (The Masks behind the Mask, Hyperliteratura, 2022) and collective volumes such as Izolare (Isolation, Nemira 2020) and Jurnal din vremea pandemiei. Proză de grup (Journal from the Times of the Pandemic, Brumar, 2021), edited by Marius Cosmeanu, are just the most visible examples that could be explored in this context. Drawing from theories concerning posthumanism, medical humanities, ethics and contagion, this paper aims to explore the manner in which the pandemic segment of Romanian literature could be integrated into a global literary framework that highlights a diversity of genres and a plurality of voices galvanizing the relationship between the massive effects of the pandemic and narrative art. My paper aims at mapping an emerging literary dialect that gives shape, voice and coherence to a collective experience that has left an indelible imprint on the present and will significantly shape the cultural climate of the near future. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, isolation, collective trauma, posthumanism, contagion, medical humanities, peripheral literatures.