DAN, SERGIU

DAN, SERGIU (originally I. Rossman; 1903–1976), Romanian novelist and journalist. Born in Piatra-Neamt, Moldavia, Dan began his literary career by publishing original poems at the age of 19. He later wrote for such leading Romanian periodicals as Contemporanul, Vremea, and Viata Româneasca, and for Bilete de Papagal, a satirical magazine edited by the poet Tudor Arghezi. Dan was also for a time the political editor of the newspaper Dreptatea. His career in fiction began in 1929 when, in collaboration with Rumulus Dianu, he wrote Viaţa minumată a lui Anton Pann ("The Wonderful Life of Anton Pan"). His own first novel, Dragoste şi moarte în provincie ("Love and Death in the Provinces," 1931) won him a major Romanian literary prize. After this came two studies of middle-class life, Arsenic (1934) and Surorile Veniamin ("The Veniamin Sisters," 1935). In 1945 Dan published a novel, Undeîncepe noaptea ("When the Night Begins"), dealing with the fate of a Jewish family during the Hitler era and containing moving descriptions of life in the concentration camps. This was followed by Roza şi ceilalţi ("Rosa and the Others," 1947), an account of Jewish life in the provinces during the grim years of Fascist persecution. Both postwar novels are noteworthy for their penetrating psychological insight. During the next decade Dan published translations from French writers including Voltaire, Anatole France, and Aragon. Two later novels, Taina Stolnicesei (1958) and Tase cel mare ("Tase the Great," 1964), were of only minor literary significance. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Călinescu, Istoria literaturii romîne dela origini pînăîn prezent (1941), 713, 919. (Abraham Feller)