A man lies sleepless in a foul-smelling room while raucous noises come from next door, and women--past and present, real or imagined--pass through his mind. From these few elements, Romanian author Dumitru Tsepeneag builds a dreamlike world both ancient and contemporary, and as mesmerizing as that i...

A man lies sleepless in a foul-smelling room while raucous noises come from next door, and women--past and present, real or imagined--pass through his mind. From these few elements, Romanian author Dumitru Tsepeneag builds a dreamlike world both ancient and contemporary, and as mesmerizing as that in his critically acclaimed "Vain Art of the Fugue." Praised by Emil Cioran for its precise and masterly evocation of sensual detail, "The Necessary Marriage" confirms Tsepeneag's position as one of the most important Eastern European writers of the post-communist era.

Dumitru Tsepeneag is one of the most innovative Romanian writers of the second half of the twentieth century. In 1975, while he was in France, his citizenship was revoked by Ceau?escu, and he was forced into exile. In the 1980s, he started to write in French. He returned to his native language after the Ceau?escu regime ended, but continues to write in his adopted language as well.

Andrea Reiter is a Research Fellow at the School of Modern Languages, Univeristy of Southampton, UK.