Draft:Michael V. Solomon

Biography

Michael V. Solomon is a writer born in Romania (Bucharest, 6 October 1951, as Mihai Solomon) and based in London. He grew up in a family that suffered under the communist regime: his parents, Cornelia (née Căbășanu) and Gheorghe Virgil Francisc were limited professsionally because of their ”unhealthy” origins, while his grandfather, National Peasant Party (PNȚ) leading figure Virgil Solomon, was a political prisoner for years and subsequently banished to the remote plains of Bărăgan.

Michael studied at the German High School in Bucharest and then graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering. He spent a lot of time reading and started writing in his teens, first poems, then thatre plays, all of which remained unpublished.

He left Romania in the 1980s and worked in Germany and elsewhere, holding various engineering and then consulting positions. After the 1989 Revolution, he returned to Romania, in an attempt to get into politics and honour the family tradition, but was discouraged by PNȚ leader Corneliu Coposu. In 2000 he moved to London, where he still resides today.

He made his literary debut at the age of 60, with a novel that merges history and autobiography, on which he worked for more than 10 years.

Published books

Acasă, între lumi. Romanul lui Ovidiu (At home, between worlds. Ovid's Novel), Bucharest, Humanitas 2012, translation from English by Mihnea Gafița, after the novel The Scapegoat

The book describes the imagined adventures of Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, who fled from exile, from the Black Sea coast, to Rome and his hometown of Sulmo. "The author, extremely knowledgeable, effortlessly transports us to the alleys and inner courtyards of Tomis, to the chiaroscuro of some private home vestibule, to Ovid's favourite grey stone steps, in the blurry light of the sea-rising sun, soon turned into a splash of colour. The villa, the garden, the street, the baths, the library, the brothel, the garrison are all admirably reconstructed topoi. Just like the pharmacopoeia used by the depressive poet, exiled in this cold and sad ‘home’.".

The Scapegoat, London, Unicorn Publishing, 2023. Revised version of At home, between worlds

”When the Roman poet Ovid upset Emperor Augustus with his satirical works, he was given three choices. The first was to take the seemingly ‘honourable’ route – kill himself. The second was to destroy everything he had ever written. Neither appealed. Instead, he was banished to a small Black Sea coastal town called Tomis, far away from the delights of Rome.

It was because of this exile that a young Romanian called Michael came to know the story of the poet, who died in AD18, aged 68. And now, Michael V Solomon, many decades later, has written a novel that tells Ovid’s story and his return to Rome. For Michael, who lives in Belsize Park, Ovid’s story was personal. His grandfather had been exiled without trial by the Soviet regime – and his family used Ovid to explain what had happened.

‘I was six when my parents told me about Ovid for the first time,’ he says. ‘I had been taken to Constanta on the Black Sea, where there is a huge statue in the main square. An old man looking down at me, as if wondering what he was doing there. He did not come here by his own will, my father explained.’ ”

The Urban Fox, Bucharest, Vremea Publishing House, 2023, translation from English by Domnica Macri

"A novel about an artist's growth to maturity, The Urban Fox takes Christopher Somerset on a journey with an unexpected ending. It moves in-between London art venues, fox-hunting grounds and high-stakes gambling tables, taking disturbing dives into the character's personal and mythological past."

External links

https://www.michaelvirgilsolomon.com

https://revistatribuna.ro/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/247.pdf

https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/encounter-with-a-poet-in-exile