American novelist
Petru Popescu (born February 1, 1944 in Bucharest, Romania) is a Romanian-American writer, director and film producer, author of best-selling novels Almost Adam and Amazon Beaming.
Romanian beginnings
The son of theater critic Radu Popescu and actress Nelly Cutava, he graduated from the Spiru Haret National College [ro], after which he studied English language and literature at the University of Bucharest.[1][2] His debut was a collection of poems, Zeu printre blocuri ("A God Between Apartment Buildings"). In 1969, he published Prins ("Caught").
He went on a Herder scholarship to Vienna (1971–1972), and in 1973 participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.[3]
Emigration
After participating in that writing program, Popescu defected in 1973[4] or 1974 while in England on a private trip related to the English translation of his book Sfârșitul bahic,[1][5] taught comparative literature in Great Britain,[6] and moved to the United States in 1975, where he studied at the Center for Advanced Film Studies of the American Film Institute.[7][8] The Romanian government tried him for treason.[citation needed] In Romania his books were banned.[9]
At the time of his defection he was the Union of Communist Youth secretary of the Romanian Writers' Union and a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Union of Communist Youth.[10]
In the United States, he married Iris Friedman, with whom he has two children: Adam and Chloe.[11] His 2001 novel The Oasis is noted as "A memoir of love and survival in concentration camp" written in the first person as if in the words of the biographee, Blanka Friedman.
Sundance
Popescu received a letter from Robert Redford inviting him to submit a script for consideration for the Sundance Film Festival.[citation needed] In 1983, Popescu took Death of an Angel to Sundance, where the script came to near finalization. The festival enabled him to find backers for the film, which was released in 1986.[12][13]
