For Two Thousand Years

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'Nothing I have read is more affecting than Mihail Sebastian's magnificent, haunting 1934 novel, For Two Thousand Years' - Philippe Sands, Guardian Books of the Year 
 
A prescient interwar masterpiece, available in English for the first time 
 
'Absolutely, definitively alone', a young Jewish student in Romania tries to make sense of a world that has decided he doesn't belong. Spending his days walking the streets and his nights drinking and gambling, meeting revolutionaries, zealots, lovers and libertines, he adjusts his eyes to the darkness that falls over Europe, and threatens to destroy him. 
 
Mihail Sebastian's 1934 novel was written amid the anti-Semitism which would, by the end of the decade, force him out of his career and turn his friends and colleagues against him. For Two Thousand Years is a lucid, heart-wrenching chronicle of resilience and despair, broken layers of memory and the terrible forces of history.

At a dark moment of identity politics and resurgent nationalism, the books that have left the deepest impression have been those that offer a sense of what we might learn from times past. Nothing I have read is more affecting than Mihail Sebastian's magnificent, haunting 1934 novel, For Two Thousand Years (trans Philip Ó Ceallaigh), now available in English

Remarkably pertinent to our time and place. . . What's chilling about For Two Thousand Years, in this sensitive translation by Philip O Ceallaigh, is how its oppressive atmosphere foreshadows the rise of Romanian authoritarianism and the destruction of Romanian Jewry, even though it was published before the fascists came to power. . . I can't help thinking that Mihail Sebastian is sending us a message across the generations

The best novel of the year was written in 1934. Mihail Sebastian's For Two Thousand Years, an account of interwar Bucharest by a nameless Jewish student, took a human lifespan to find an English translation

It wonderfully captures the sense of pre-war Romania in all its sophistication, its beauty and its horror... I love Sebastian's courage, his lightness and his wit

An elegant and candid and horrifyingly understated account of watching violent unreason rise around you

Mordant, meditative, knotty, provocative... More than a fascinating historical document, it is a coherent and persuasive novel... Penguin should be applauded for finally bringing this book to an anglophone audience. Philip Ó Ceallaigh's translation is highly convincing and sweeps us along with its protagonist's emotional shifts

Eerily prophetic... a brilliant translation of a most unusual novel. For Two Thousand Years is a book of truths

One of the most unusual, seductive and beautiful books I've read in years. It has lightness of touch coupled with astonishing range... Like any classic of a type we've not seen before, it is a book which needs to be read and re-read and which, over years, will become a reliable friend for life

For Two Thousand Years is lucid, melancholy and playful - a fictional memoir recreating the night-life and love affairs, friendships and betrayals of a world that was falling apart

John Gray, author of The Soul of the Marionette

Philip Ó Ceallaigh's meticulous and vibrant translation restores to us the wry, bitterly intelligent, endlessly self-castigating yet dauntingly perceptive and prophetic voice of Mihail Sebastian. For Two Thousand Years is a masterful book charged with the tension and paranoia that preceded one of the bloodiest convulsions in the history of the 20th century, and the terrifying thing is, it could have been written yesterday, today, tomorrow

A powerful and prescient novel which throws light on darkness and disturbs as it entrances...  If there is any justice [Sebastian's] posthumous profile will increase

Complex, unsettling... Sebastian seldom provoked indifference in his readers. That is why he belongs in the pantheon of classic authors... For Two Thousand Years is a work that also speaks to our own discontents right now

His prose is like something Chekhov might have written - the same modesty, candour, and subtleness of observation

Restraint is the defining mark of both For Two Thousand Years and the subsequent Journal, as it is of Sebastian's personality... In a truly atrocious time he refused to compromise on his duties as a civilized human being... Even on the darkest pages he finds room for a graceful turn of phrase, a flash of wit, a gesture of understanding and forgiveness

Mihail Sebastian was born in Romania in 1907 as Iosef Hecter. He worked as a lawyer and writer until anti-Semitic legislation forced him to abandon his public career. Having survived the war and the Holocaust, he was killed in a road accident early in 1945 as he was crossing the street to teach his first class. His long-lost diary, Journal 1935-1944: The Fascist Years, was published to great acclaim in the late 1990s.

'Absolutely, definitively alone', a young Jewish student in Romania tries to make sense of a world that has decided he doesn't belong. Spending his days walking the streets and his nights drinking and gambling, meeting revolutionaries, zealots, lovers and libertines, he adjusts his eyes to the darkness that falls over Europe, and threatens to destroy him. 
 
Mihail Sebastian's 1934 masterpiece, now available in English for the first time, was written as the rise of fascism forced him out of his career and turned his friends and colleagues against him. For Two Thousand Years is a prescient, heart-wrenching chronicle of resilience and despair, broken layers of memory and the terrible forces of history.

Journal 1935-44

'Deserves to be on the same shelf as Anne Frank's Diary and to find as huge a readership' - Philip Roth

This book is alive, a human soul lives in it, along with the unfolding ghastliness of the last century, which passed an inch away from Sebastian's nose. His prose is like something Chekov might have written - the same modesty, candour, and subtleness of observation. Here is a life, and an absurd death, whose spell will last a long time

This humane masterpiece deserves to be ranked alongside the diaries of Victor Klemperer for its quiet, and indeed humorous, insights into the nature of wickedness

A brilliantly haunting account of the rise of anit-Semitism and Fascism. At times it gives so intimate a feeling of fear that it is painful to read

Moving, perceptive and sharply observed...the journal is a valuable addition not just to the canon of wartime and holocaust literature, but to that of all humanity

Mihail Sebastian was the pen-name of the Romanian writer Iosif Hechter.  Born in the Danube port of Braila, he died in a road accident in 1945.  During the period between the wars he was well-known for his lyrical and ironic plays and for urbane psychological novels tinged with melancholy, as well as for his extraordinary literary essays.

Mihail Sebastian was a promising young Jewish writer in pre-war Bucharest, a novelist, playwright, poet and journalist who counted among his friends the leading intellectuals and social luminaries of a sophisticated Eastern European culture. Because of Romania's opportunistic treatment of Jews, he survived the war and the Holocaust, only to be killed in a road accident early in 1945. His remarkable diary was published only recently in its original language and is here translated into English for the first time. 
 
Sebastian's Journal offers not only a chronicle of the darkest years of European anti-Semitism but a lucid and finely shaded analysis of erotic and social life, a reader's notebook, and a music lover's journal. Above all, it is a measured but blistering account of the major Romanian intellectuals, Sebastian's friends, writers and thinkers who were mesmerised by the Nazi-fascist delirium of Europe's 'reactionary revolution'. In poignant and memorable sequences, Sebastian touches on the progression of the machinery of brutalisation and on the historical context that lay behind it. 
 
One of the most remarkable literary achievements of the Nazi period, Sebastian's journal vividly captures the now-vanished world of pre-war Bucharest. Under the pressure of hatred and horror in the 'huge anti-Semitic factory' that was Romania in the years of World War II, his writing maintains the grace of its intelligence, standing as one of the most important human and literary documents to survive from a singular era of terror and despair.

Mihail Sebastian

John Banville

I love Sebastian's courage, his lightness, and his wit

Sebastian belongs in the pantheon of classic authors

Nothing I have read is more affecting than Mihail Sebastian's magnificent, haunting 1934 novel, For Two Thousand Years.

Sebastian's observations of the complex physical and emotional details of romantic intrigue are perceptive and affectionate....these concise stories...showcase Sebastian's brilliant eye for emotional detail

If there is any justice [Sebastian's] posthumous profile will increase

Sebastian died a victim of an automobile accident in 1946, having survived the Second World War and the Holocaust. That fatal moment robbed the literary world of a unique voice

A minor masterpiece of voice, mood and emotion

Stefan Valeriu, a young Romanian student, holidays alone in the Alps, where he soon becomes entangled in romantic relationships with three different women who pass through his guesthouse. We follow Stefan after his return to Paris as he reflects on the women in his life, at times playing the lover, and at others observing shrewdly from the periphery. 
 
Women's four interlinked stories offer nuanced and deeply moving portraits of romantic relationships in all their complexity, from unrequited love and passionate affairs to tepid marriages of convenience. In light, elegant prose, Mihail Sebastian, widely regarded as the greatest Romanian writer of the 20th century, explores longing, otherness, empathy, and regret.

Mihail Sebastian

Praise for Women

I love Sebastian's courage, his lightness, and his wit

Sebastian belongs in the pantheon of classic authors

A compelling portrait of desire

I love Sebastian's courage, his lightness, and his wit

Sebastian belongs in the pantheon of classic authors

A compelling portrait of desire

I love Sebastian's courage, his lightness, and his wit

Sebastian belongs in the pantheon of classic authors

A compelling portrait of desire

Books by Mihail Sebastian

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