Revisiting the Eastern European Provinces: Homelands and Homecomings in Ctlin Dorian Florescu's Novels

In order to uncover the fictional strategies that project Florescu's native Romania - particularly the former Habsburg region of Banat - as a homeland, an exploration of the consistency and particularities of the tropes of exile, displacement and homecoming, as revealed in his earlier novels, is an essential prerequisite. Given the relevance of autobiographical elements in this writer's work, this paper will focus on the author's first three novels, Wunderzeit (2001), Der kurze Weg nach Hause (2002) and Der blinde Masseur (2006), investigating the themes and dynamics of his exilic discourse. Drawing from contemporary theories concerning displacement and the search for real and imaginary homelands, the article explores the specific ways in which these issues surface as subjective reflections on the recent Eastern European past.