A New Book 

Some month ago, the famous Columbia University Press in New York published within its collection East European Monographs, in its 538-th (DXXXVIII) number, the book Mircea Eliade, a Spirit of Amplitude by professor Eugen Simion, the president of the Romanian Academy.

The volume is a nearly integral translation  into English of the one issued in Romania  in 1995, Mircea Eliade, spirit al amplitudinii, Demiurg Publishing House. We state “nearly integral” as, besides the initial nineteen chapters (in Romanian language version), a twentieth one has been added, that about The Diary of a “Man of the Process”.

The book is a general view of Mircea Eliade’s writing activities - fictional and nonfictional ones - a review of the mythic narrations and of his early existentialist novels as well, a running both through his diary pages and his journalistic work. It represents the most ample and exact monograph of the Romanian writer, which places him on his deserved socle within the Romanian literature and the universal context during the 20^th century (see the numerous references to Joyce, Svevo, Papini, Huxly, the world of myths so close to Eliade  etc).

The American edition - issued in excellent graphic conditions - comprises in annexe a critical apparatus notes about the writers mentioned in the text.

Mircea Eliade, a Spirit of Amplitude is certainly the best monographic essay dedicated to the writer so far.