The reader's impression is one of a dream - the only thing that's left upon waking is the memory of a melody at the end of a concert.

We could say that Romanian Onirisme was born from painting and not from surrealist literature. The visual is primordial. Dimov said, 'Dreams are not a source, but a canon, a legislative model.'

Where is automatism in the work of Chirico or Tanguy? Even Dali had to renounce it in order to be able to organize the space of the canvas according to the combined laws of dreams and pictorial aesthetics.

Chess hasn't really influenced my literature. It's true, there's a character in Pigeon Post, an old chess player; but it's more of a wink, a self-portrait and not much more.

The literary game is the abyss of human society itself: interactive, playful and tragic. We can't live alone. For me, Robinson [Crusoe] is either a false myth or else he represents the denial of human society. We can't play by ourselves. In literature, it's even more complicated, because one has to play with an indeterminate number of players simultaneously and every game is different. The other player can abandon your game at any time...to go play chess.

We don't recount our dreams; we construct them with the materials of reality. We aren't looking for God, psychic truth or authenticity, but for esthetic effect. That's why I baptized our movement Structural, or Esthetic, Onirism. Dreams and music were our models.

In so-called communist Romania, chess was held in high esteem, even if our champions were weaker than the Soviets. This game, this "sport of the mind," was at the time a better way to establish your reputation than literature.