My first book published in France was translated and titled Exercices d'Attente in 1972. It was a collection of short works written and published in Romania. In 1973 I was ready to publish the novel Arpiรจges, which I had started writing in Romanian and of which I had published some fragments under the title Vain Art of the Fugue. Some years later, I finished Necessary Marriage.
Dumitru TepeneagAt one point I had a very complicated plan to use the game of chess as a generating structure for writing. I prepared for a long time. I finally wrote two chapters and stopped. It was too complicated and too difficult to write. And who would've read it?
Dumitru TepeneagFor me, literature is the daughter of music: a bit heavy and more level headed than its mother. Literature submits to the same principles of successive perception, which allows it to build progressively.
Dumitru TepeneagSince adolescence I've had a passion for Romantic Fantastique literature, which continued with Expressionism and culminated with the genius of Kafka. It's that German thread of the metaphysic - they were looking for the beyond in dreams.
Dumitru TepeneagI was a professional chess player in Romania, but only a small-time master. When I came to France, I continued playing chess for many years: I played tournaments in numerous countries with mixed results. I wrote and published a book - La Dรฉfense Alekhine and translated two others from Russian. I taught chess in schools; I earned more money through chess than through literature.
Dumitru TepeneagSeine et Danube was launched in 2003 with the help of Romanian authorities who had finally realized the necessity of promoting literature and Romanian culture in general. Along with focusing on the literature of the countries the Danube traversed (with an emphasis on Romania), we printed work that interested us from the banks of the Seine: French and French-Romanian authors like Cioran and Fondane. We dedicated our last edition to surrealism and Esthetic Onirisme.
Dumitru Tepeneag