BLECHER, MARCEL

BLECHER, MARCEL (1909–1938), Romanian author. Blecher was born in Botoşani, but spent most of his life in the town of Roman. He was something of a phenomenon in Romanian literature. Afflicted with tuberculosis of the bone he was bedridden for the last ten years of his short life. His illness led to a heightened sensitivity and an obsession with death which contributed to the artistry of his writing. Blecher's work appeared in various periodicals before he published his first collection of poems, Corp transparent, in 1934. His first novel, Intîmplaˇri in irealitatea imediată ("Incidents in the Immediate Unreality," 1935), was one of the first attempts at surrealism in Romanian literature. Despite his remoteness from reality Blecher drew some remarkable portraits of a middle-class Jewish family in a provincial town and some lively scenes of Jewish customs. In his autobiographical novel Inimi cicatrizate ("Scarred Souls," 1937) Blecher described life in the sanatorium at Berck-sur-Mer in France where he spent a long time encased in a plaster cast. In his book he examined with deep psychological insight not only his own spiritual experiences but those of his fellow patients. A Yiddish version of "Scarred Souls" appeared in Romania and two editions of the original were published in Israel. At the suggestion of André Gide, Blecher began translating the novel into French, but died before he could complete the task. Among his unpublished works, he left the manuscript of a novel on a Jewish theme entitled Vizuina luminoasaă ("The Bright Vision").

bibliography:

G. Cṭlinescu, Istoria Literaturii Romîne dela origini pînaˇ ínprezent (1941), 880, 928; C. Baltazar, Scriitor şi Om (1946), 29–34; Crohmˇalniceanu, in: Preuves, no. 202 (Dec. 1967), 36–38; Litani, in: Al ha-Mishmar (Sept. 20, 1964); Paňa, in: Revista Cultului Mozaic (March 1, 1968).

[Dora Litani-Littman]