Paul Goma

Paul Goma (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈpa.ul ˈɡoma]; born October 2, 1935) is a Romanian writer, also known for his activities as a dissident and leading opponent of the communist regime before 1989. Forced into exile by the communist authorities, he became a political refugee and currently resides in France as a stateless person. After 2000, Goma has expressed opinions on World War II, the Holocaust in Romania and the Jews, claims which have led to widespread criticism for antisemitism.

Early life

Goma was born to a Romanian family in Mana village, Orhei County, which at that time was a part of the Kingdom of Romania, nowadays part of Republic of Moldova. His parents, Eufimie Goma (1909–1967) and Maria Goma (née Popescu; 1909–1974), were schoolteachers in Mana. His brother Petre was born in 1933, but died before his first birthday.

After the 1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, Paul Goma's father was taken away by the Soviet authorities and deported to Siberia. In October 1943, Eufimie Goma was found by his family, as a prisoner of war, in "Camp No. 1 for Soviet Prisoners", in Slobozia, Ialomiţa County, Romania.

In March 1944, the Goma family took refuge in Sibiu, Transylvania. In August 1944, finding themselves in danger of involuntary "repatriation" to the Soviet Union, they fled to the village of Buia, by the Târnava Mare River. From October to December 1944, the Goma family hid in the forests around Buia. On January 13, 1945 they were captured by Romanian shepherds and turned over to the Gendarmerie in Sighişoara, where they were interned at the "Centrul de Repatriere" ("Repatriation Center"). There, Eufimie Goma managed to forge documents for his family; however, Maria Goma's brother, who didn't have forged papers, was promptly "repatriated to Siberia". In June 1945, taking advantage of the forged documents, they returned to Buia. Later on, Paul Goma would describe his family's refugee saga in the novels Arta refugii ("The Art of Refuge", a wordplay on the Romanian words for "refuge" and "taking flight"), Soldatul câinelui ("Dog's Soldier"), and Gardă inversă ("Reverse Guard").

Dissident in Romania

In May 1952, Goma, while a student in 10th grade, was detained for eight days by the Securitate for speaking out in the classroom about Romanian anti-communist partisans and for keeping a coded personal journal. In September–October of the same year he was barred from all the schools in Romania. After some unsuccessful attempts at re-admission he was finally allowed to attend Negru Vodă high school in Făgăraş.

In 1954 he was admitted to the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest. In November 1956, he was part of the Bucharest student movement of 1956: during a seminar, he read out to other students parts of a novel he had written about a student who establishes a movement that is similar to the ones in Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Goma was arrested on the charge of attempting to organize a strike at University of Bucharest and he was sentenced to two years in prison. He served his sentence Jilava and Gherla prisons, and then put under house arrest in Lăteşti (a village in the Bărăgan Plain) until 1963.

As a former political prisoner, he was not allowed to resume his studies and he had to work as a manual labourer until 1965, when a decree allowed former prisoners to study at the University. In September 1965, he was re-admitted as a first-year student at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest. In the fall of 1967, under pressure from the Securitate, he was forced to give up his studies at the University. On August 7, 1968, Paul Goma married Ana Maria Năvodaru. Their son Filip-Ieronim was born in 1975.

At the end of August 1968, Paul Goma became a member of the Romanian Communist Party, in an act of solidarity with the Romanian position during the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia (Romania did not take part, indeed condemning the invasion).

Several months later, Goma attempted to publish a novel, Ostinato (based on his experiences with the secret police), but it was not allowed by the censors, after one of them claimed to recognize one character as Elena Ceaușescu. Nevertheless, he published the novel in translation in West Germany in 1971, as a result of which, Paul Goma was excluded from the Communist Party. Paul Goma refused to give up his Party membership by his own will.

During the summer of 1972, he was allowed to visit France, where he wrote Gherla, a novel based on his experiences in the Gherla Prison. This book was also denied publication in Romania and it was published in France in 1976.

Goma's 1977 letters

In 1977, Paul Goma wrote a public letter expressing solidarity with the Charter 77, but, finding few friends willing to sign it, wrote another letter, addressed directly to Ceaușescu, in which he asked him to sign it, as they two (Goma and Ceaușescu) are the only two Romanians not afraid of the Securitate. Following this, he wrote another letter (addressed to the 35 countries in the CSCE) in which he called for respect for human rights in Romania.

On 17 February 1977, Ceaușescu made a speech in which he attacked the "traitors of the country", referring to the two letters Goma wrote. The following day, a police cordon was in front of his building, not allowing non-residents, to prevent people from signing Goma's letter. The authorities tried to convince Goma to emigrate, but he refused. As the police cordon got more relaxed, several more people signed the letter and they were arrested on exiting Goma's apartment.

In March, he wrote an even tougher admonitory letter to Ceaușescu, urging him not to break the bond between the people and him, a bond that was created after Ceaușescu condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and attacked the Securitate whom Goma said were "traitors and enemies of Romania, who produce nothing and prevent those who produce from producing more". In the meantime, Goma gained the support of two intellectuals: psychiatrist Ion Vianu and literary critic Ion Negoiţescu; in all, he had 75 signatures.

Called by Cornel Burtică, the Secretary for Propaganda of the Central Committee, on March 12, Goma got the promise of being allowed to publish again, but he refused as he said that he wants not to be followed by the Securitate. A week later, a former boxer, Horst Stumpf, broke into Goma's flat and attacked him; the attacks repeated the following days. As he was barricading himself with some friends in his apartment, he gave an interview to French TV station Antenne 2.

Goma was arrested and excluded from the Writers' Union of Romania. Following his arrest, he was attacked in the Romanian media: in a Săptămîna article, Eugen Barbu called him "a nullity", in Luceafărul, Nicolae Dragoş said he was "rousing reactionary elements" and in Contemporanul, Vasile Băran, not mentioning Goma, claimed that "individuals calling themselves writers and journalists sully with the dirtiest of dirt our noble profession".

An international appeal for his release was launched, among the signatories being Eugène Ionesco, Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Miller and Edward Albee. Goma was released on 6 May 1977, four days before the anniversary of 100 years of independence, celebrations which Ceaușescu didn't want overshadowed by Goma's arrest.

On November 20, 1977, Paul Goma and his family left Romania and went into exile in France.

Exile in France

In 1979, Paul Goma was active in the creation of the Free Workers' Syndicate.

On 3 February 1981, Paul Goma and Nicolae Penescu (former Interior Minister) received parcels in their post. Penescu opened his parcel to find a book and when he lifted its cover an explosion wounded him. Goma, who had received two death threats since his arrival in France, called the police. Both packages had been sent on instructions by Carlos the Jackal.

In 1982, the Securitate planned to assassinate Goma. Matei Haiducu, the secret agent sent by the Securitate to carry out the plan, turned to French counter-intelligence (DST). With the help of the DST, Haiducu simulated an attempt on Goma's life, by poisoning his drink at a restaurant; the drink was then spilled by a French agent, pretending to be a "clumsy guest".

Although Goma's numerous works (both fiction and non-fiction) were translated worldwide, his books, except the first one, were published in Romania only after the 1989 Revolution. He now lives in Paris as a stateless political refugee, his Romanian citizenship having been revoked after 1978 by the communist government. He turned down an offer of citizenship from the French Republic, extended simultaneously to him and to the Czech writer Milan Kundera. In September 2006, a petition in favor of restoring his Romanian citizenship did not result in any progress on the issue.

Controversies

Some of Goma's post-2005 articles and essays have been criticized for their strong antisemitic nature. Goma rejects these criticisms and claims that he has filed libel lawsuits against his accusers. He asserts that his wife is Jewish and states that similar arguments were used against him by the Securitate in the 1980s. On January 30, 2007, Goma was awarded the "Citizen of Honor" distinction by the Municipal Council of Timişoara. In February 2007, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania and the Israeli Embassy protested against the distinction, arguing that Paul Goma is the author of multiple antisemitic articles.

On April 5, 2006 he was invited to become a member of the Tismăneanu Commission, a body charged with researching the crimes of the communist dictatorship in Romania. Nine days later he was dismissed by the Commission's president, Vladimir Tismăneanu, who explained the exclusion based on Goma's questioning the moral and scientific credibility of the president of the Commission, and disclosing of their private correspondence.

Goma's literary debut came in 1966 with a short story published in the review Luceafǎrul with which he collaborated as well as with Gazeta literarǎ, Viaţa românească and Ateneu. In 1968 he published his first volume of stories, Camera de alături ("The Room Next Door"). After Ostinato and its West German publication in 1971 came Uşa ("Die Tür" or "The Door") in 1972, also in Germany. After his forced emigration in 1977 and until his books could again be published in Romania after the 1989 revolution, all his books appeared in France and in French. (His novel Gherla had in fact been published in 1976 first in French by Gallimard of Paris before he left Romania.) There followed such novels as Dans le cercle ("Within the Circle", 1977); Garde inverse ("Reverse Guard", 1979); Le Tremblement des Hommes ("The Trembling of People", 1979); Chassée-croisé ("Intersection", 1983); Les Chiens de la mort ("The Dogs of Death", 1981), which details his prison experiences in Piteşti in the 1950s; and Bonifacia (1986). The autobiographical Le Calidor appeared in French in 1987 and was subsequently published in Romanian as Din Calidor: O copilărie basarabeană ("In Calidor: A Bessarabian Childhood", 1989, 1990; translated as My Childhood at the Gate of Unrest) in the Romanian émigré journal Dialog, edited by Ion Solacolu.

In its totality, Goma's literary work comprises a "persuasive and grimly fascinating exposure of totalitarian inhumanity" from which, in his own case, even foreign exile was no guarantee of safe haven. In such later novels as Bonifacia and My Childhood at the Gate of Unrest, the biographical element dominates as he focuses on his childhood and adolescence in Bessarabia. Several sets of diaries, all published in Romania in 1997 and 1998, shed light on Goma's later life and career: Alte Jurnale ("Other Journals"), which covers his stay in the United States in autumn 1978 but concentrates primarily on 1994-96; Jurnal I: Jurnal pe sărite ("Journal I: By Leaps and Bounds", 1997); Jurnal II: Jurnal de căldură mare ("Journal II: Journal of Great Heat", 1997), covering June and July 1989; Jurnal III: Jurnal de noapte lungă ("Journal of the Long Night", 1997), covering September to December 1993; and Jurnalul unui jurnal 1997 ("The Journal of a Journal, 1997"), focusing just on that year.

• (Romanian) Camera de alǎturi, Bucharest, 1968.
• (German) Ostinato, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1971. ISBN 3-518-06638-2
  • (French) La Cellule des libérables, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1971. ISBN 2-07-028096-9
  • (Dutch) Ostinato, Bruna & Zoon, Utrecht, 1974.
  • (Romanian) Ostinato, Editura Univers, 1992. ISBN 973-34-0215-X
• (German) Die Tür, 1972.
  • (French) Elles étaient quatre, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1974.
  • (Romanian) Uşa noastrǎ cea de toate zilele, Editura Cartea Româneascǎ, Bucharest, 1992.
• (French) Gherla, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1976.
  • (Swedish) Gherla, 1978.
  • (Romanian) Gherla, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990. ISBN 973-28-0169-7
• (French) Dossier Paul Goma. L'écrivain face au socialisme du silence., Paris, 1977
• (French) Dans le cercle, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1977. ISBN 2-07-029709-8
  • (Romanian) In cerc, 1995.
• (French) Garde inverse, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1979.
  • (Romanian) Gardă inversă, Univers, 1997. ISBN 973-34-0409-8
• (French) Le Tremblement des Hommes: peut-on vivre en Roumanie aujourd'hui?, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1979. ISBN 2-02-005101-X.
  • (Dutch) 1980.
  • (Romanian) Culorile curcubeului '77, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990. ISBN 973-28-0174-3
  • (Romanian) Culoarea curcubeului ’77. Cod „Bǎrbosul”, Polirom, 2005. ISBN 973-681-833-0
• (French) Les chiens de mort, ou, La passion selon Piteşti, Hachette, Paris, 1981. ISBN 2-01-008309-1
  • (Dutch) Het vierkante ei, Elsevier Manteau, Antwerp, 1983.
  • (German) Die rote Messe, Thule, Köln, 1984.
  • (Romanian) Patimile dupǎ Piteşti, 1990.
  • (Romanian) Patimile dupǎ Piteşti, Dacia, 1999. ISBN 973-35-0845-4
• (French) Chassé-croise, Hachette, Paris, 1983.
  • (Romanian) Soldatul câinelui, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1991. ISBN 973-28-0235-9
• (French) Le calidor, Albin Michel, 1987.
  • (Romanian) Din calidor, 1989.
  • (English) My Childhood at the Gate of Unrest, Readers International, July 1990. ISBN 0-930523-74-1
  • (Romanian) Din calidor: O copilǎrie basarabeanǎ, Polirom, 2004. ISBN 973-681-732-6
• (French) L'art de la fugue, Julliard, 1990. ISBN 2-260-00635-3
  • (Romanian) Arta refugii, Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1991. ISBN 973-35-0225-1
  • (Romanian) Arta refugii, Editura Basarabian, Chişinau, 1995.
• (Romanian) Sabina, 1991.
  • (French) Sabina, 1993.
  • (Romanian) Sabina, Universal Dalsi, Bucharest, 2005. ISBN 973-691-031-8
• (French) Astra, 1992.
  • (Romanian) Astra, Editura Dacia, 1992.
• (Romanian) Bonifacia, 1993.
• (French) Bonifacia, Albin Michel 1998. ISBN 2-226-02589-8
  • (Romanian) Bonifacia, Anamarol, 2006. ISBN 973-8931-18-5
• (Romanian) Adameva, Loreley, Iaşi, 1995. (not distributed)
• (Romanian) Amnezia la români, Litera, 1995.
• (Romanian) Scrisori întredeschise - singur impotriva lor, Multiprint "Familia", Oradea, 1995.
• (Romanian) Justa Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1995.
• (Romanian) Jurnal pe sărite, Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1997
• (Romanian) Jurnal de cǎldura mare, Edutura Nemira, Bucharest, 1997
• (Romanian) Altina - grǎdina scufundata, Editura Cartier, Chişinau, 1998.
• (Romanian) Scrisuri. 1972-1998, Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1999. ISBN 973-569-377-1
• (Romanian) Roman intim, Editura Allfa, 1999. ISBN 973-9477-06-2
• (Romanian) Jurnal de Noapte Lungă, Dacia, Bucharest, 2000.
• (Romanian) Jurnal unui jurnal, Dacia, Cluj, 2000.
• (Romanian) Jurnal de Apocrif, Dacia, Cluj, 2000.
• (French) Profil bas, Des Syrtes, 2001. ISBN 2845450389
• (Romanian) Săptămîna Roşie. 28 Iunie–3 Iulie 1940 sau Basarabia şi evreii, Museum, Chişinău, 2003. ISBN 978-9975-906-77-7
• (Romanian) Jurnal, Criterion, Bucharest, 2004. ISBN 978-973-86850-8-6
• (Romanian) Alfabecedar, Editura Victor Frunză, 2005.

• "Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres" (France), 1986
• Writers' Union of Moldova's Prize for Prose, March, 1992.
• Writers' Union of Romania's Prize for Prose, May 25, 1992.
• "Honorary Citizen" by the Municipal Council of Timişoara, January 30, 2007.