A Balkan Odyssey of Excess: A Case Study of Mircea Cărtărescu and His Literary Process of Becoming-Minority

This paper explores how Mircea Cărtărescu’s most recent novel, Theodoros, revitalizes the concept of Balkanism in current Romanian literature through a shocking, harsh and excessively visual narrative. Our aim is to analyse a possible typology of the main character Theodoros, revealing, in fact, Mircea Cărtărescu’s ability to overcome the Manicheist perspective and ironically mimic the Western discourse that watches the “barbarian” from afar and surrounds it with stereotypes. Moreover, we propose a socio-cultural reading of the novel, focusing on how the process of becoming-minority is depicted and how Cărtărescu's Balkan odyssey, filled with symbols, decorativism and elements of magical realism, ultimately turns into a materialization of irony.

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