Vintilă Horia

Vintilă Caftangioglu (18 December 1915 – 4 April 1992), better known by his pen name Vintilă Horia, was a Romanian diplomat, essayist, philosopher, journalist, and novelist.

Biography

Born in Segarcea, he graduated from the Saint Sava National College, then studied Law, and then Letters, including terms at universities in Italy and Austria. An associate of the philosopher Nichifor Crainic, Horia sat on the editorial board of his Sfarmă Piatră journal. He contributed to Gândirea and Porunca Vremii articles praising the Italian fascism of Benito Mussolini (Miracolul fascist — "The Fascist Miracle"), as well as pieces attacking authors whom the traditionalist group viewed as decadent (notably, Tudor Arghezi and Eugen Lovinescu).

After Crainic became Minister of Propaganda in King Carol II's government, he appointed Horia as member of the diplomatic mission to Rome. According to his own account, Horia shared Crainic's rejection of the Iron Guard, and, after Carol was ousted by the latter's National Legionary State government, he was recalled from office. He later left for Vienna.

With Romania's siding with the Allies in 1944 (see Romania during World War II), Horia was taken prisoner by the Nazi authorities, and interned in the concentration camps at Karpacz and Maria Pfarr (he was to be liberated a year later by the British Army).

Deciding not to return to an increasingly Soviet Union-dominated Romania, Vintilă Horia lived in Italy (where he became good friends with Giovanni Papini).

In a show-trial in Romania in the late 1940s, Horia was sentenced in absentia to life in prison. The justification for the sentence was that he had facilitated the penetration of fascist ideas in Romania, and for making the case for those ideas to be implemented under the leadership of the German embassy in Bucharest. The sentence against him has never been rescinded. In 1948, Horia moved to Argentina, where he taught at the Universidad de Buenos Aires; after March 1953, he lived in Spain, employed as a researcher in the Italic Studies field.

He won the Prix Goncourt for his novel Dieu est né en exil (God was born in exile) in 1960; however, following the allegations that he had been a member of the Iron Guard, Vintila Horia refused to receive the Prize, but the Goncourt remains attributed to him. According to some, the allegations constituted slander aimed at Horia by the communist regime, with the purpose of blackmailing him into issuing positive remarks about the regime. His book notably attracted Jean-Paul Sartre's criticism.

Other prizes received by Vintila Horia: Medalla de Oro de “Il Conciliatore”, Milano (1961); “Bravo para los Hombres que Unem en la Verdad”, Madrid (1972); “Dante Aligheri" Prize, Firenze (1981).

He died in Collado Villalba, a municipality of Madrid.

The centenary of Vintila Horia was celebrated at the University Alcala de Henares and in several towns in Romania.

Works

Novels

• Acolo și stelele ard (1942).
• Dieu est né en exil (1960; first volume of Horia's "Trilogy of Exile").
• Le Chevalier de la Résignation (1961; second volume of Horia's "Trilogy of Exile").
• Les Impossibles (1962).
• La septième lettre. Le roman de Platon (1964).
• Une femme pour l’Apocalypse (1968).
• El hombre de las nieblas (1970).
• El viaje a San Marcos (1972).
• Marta o la segunda guerra (1982).
• Persécutez Boèce (1987; final volume of Horia's "Trilogy of Exile").
• Un sepulcro en el cielo (1987).
• Les clefs du crépuscule (1988).
• Mai sus de miazănoapte (1992).

Novellas

• El despertar de la sombra (1967).
• Informe último sobre el Reino H (1981).
• Moartea morții mele (1999).
• El fin del exilio. Cuentos de juventud (2002).

Diaries

• Journal d’un paysan du Danube (1966).
• Jurnal de Sfârșit de Ciclu, 1989-1992. Jurnal Torinez 1978 (2017)
• Jurnal de Sfârșit de Ciclu, 1987-1989 (2018)

Memoir

• Memoriile unui fost Săgetător (2015).

Essays

• Presencia del mito (1956).
• Poesía y libertad (1959).
• La rebeldia de los escritores soviéticos (1960).
• Quaderno italiano (1962).
• Giovanni Papini (1963).
• Preface to Diccionario de los Papas, by Juan Dacio (1963; "Juan Dacio" was Horia's pen-name.)
• Platon, personaje de novela (1964).
• España y otros mundos (1970).
• Viaje a los Centros de la Tierra (1971).
• Pepi Sánchez (1972).
• Mester de novelista (1972).
• Encuesta detrás de lo visible (1975).
• Introducción a la literatura del siglo XX (1976).
• Consideraciones sobre un mundo peor (1978).
• Literatura y disidencia (1980).
• Los derechos humanos y la novela del siglo XX (1981).
• Mai bine mort decât comunist (1990).
• Dicționarul Papilor (1999).

Poetry

• Procesiuni (1936).
• Cetatea cu duhuri (1939).
• Cartea omului singur (1941).
• A murit un Sfânt (1952).
• Poesia romaneasca noua (1956).
• Jurnal de copilărie (1958).
• Viitor petrecut (1976).
• Culorile Tăcerii (2018)

Translated into English

• God Was Born in Exile (1961; translated by A. Lytton Sells)
• "The Forest as Mandala: Notes Concerning a Novel by Mircea Eliade." In: Myths and Symbols: Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade (1969)

References

• Z. Ornea, Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească, Ed. Fundaţiei Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995
• (Romanian) Excerpts from Wladimir Paskievici, Vintilă Horia - omul, opera şi afacerea Premiului Goncourt
• (Romanian) Marilena Rotaru, "Întoarcerea lui Vintilă Horia (2)" (1990 interview with Vintilă Horia), on Memoria.ro
• Richard Wagner, "A Writer in the Cold War", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, April 2, 2007 (available at signandsight.com on April 30, 2007)

External links

• Works by Vintilă Horia at Hathi Trust
• God Was Born in Exile at Internet Archive
• Works by Vintilă Horia at Dialnet