ANA BLANDIANA

ANA BLANDIANA (the pen name of Otilia Valeria Rusan, née Coman) is the author of sixteen volumes of poetry, two volumes of fantastic short-stories, one novel and ten volumes of essays published in Romanian and of eighty-nine volumes published in twenty-six foreign languages. She has been awarded several national and international prizes. Her work was subjected to three publication bans during the 1959-1964 interval, in 1985 and during the 1988-1989 interval.

After 1990, Ana Blandiana re-establishes the Romanian PEN Club, whose president she was from 1990 until 2004 (afterwards, she has held the title of honorary president).

She is the founder and president of the Civic Academy, which created the Memorial of the Victims of Communism at Sighetu Marmației – the first in the world – under the aegis of the Council of Europe.

She is a member of the Stéphane Mallarmé Poetry Academy, of the European Academy of Poetry and of the World Academy of Poetry (UNESCO).  She is a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy. She has been awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa from several Romanian universities, from the University of Salamanca (Spain) and from the University of Sophia (Bulgaria). She is Knight of the Legion of Honor.