Cristian Tudor Popescu (b. October 1, 1956) is a Romanian journalist, essayist and short-story writer. The author of science fiction stories during his youth, he has also hosted talk shows for various television stations, and had contributions as a literary critic and translator. Popescu was the editor-in-chief of Adevărul, and, since 2005, he founded the newspaper Gândul in association with Mircea Dinescu.
Biography
A native of Bucharest, he majored in Computer Science at Politehnica University. Popescu began writing fiction during the communist regime, focusing on his journalistic career after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. He made his debut in 1984 in the Echinox literary magazine of Cluj-Napoca with the SF story Grădina de cenuşă ("The Ash Garden"). Popescu's work was subsequently featured in most SF anthologies, almanacs and magazines before 1990, and he was twice a laureate of the ROMCON Awards (1985, 1986). He received the Eurocon Award for the collection of short stories Planetarium. After 1990, he confined his SF activity to translating and editing the works of others. Popescu translated Stanisław Lem's novels Manuscript Found in a Bathtub, Return from the Stars, as well as Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron (in collaboration with Dan Mihai Pavelescu). As an editor of SF literature, he published Dănuţ Ungureanu's novel Marilyn Monroe on a Closed Curve (1993), Dan Merişca's Revolt in Labyrinth (1996), and the SF anthology The Empire of the Crooked Mirrors (1993). Between 1990 and 2005, Popescu was the editor-in-chief of Adevărul newspaper. In disagreement with the management, he and 81 journalists resigned from the paper and, together with Mircea Dinescu, started their own publication, Gândul. Cristian Tudor Popescu was the president of the Romanian Press Club until November 2006, when he resigned his office over an issue regarding the representation of journalists in the Club. He was re-elected president on February 10, 2007.[1]
Published volumes
- Planetarium, Editura Albatros, Bucharest,1987
- Omohom. Speculative Fictions (mainly a reprint of "Planetarium", with two stories being added and one removed), Polirom, Iaşi, 2000.
