In the late1960s Romania during the relative cultural thaw of the postStalinist period Dumitru Tsepeneag emerged as an innovative writer of short prose and the pioneer of oneirism a subversive theory and practice of literature that challenged not only socialist realism in particular but realism in general. By the early 1970s following a cultural crackdown by the totalitarian state oneirism had been banned and Tsepeneag was forced into exile in France. Short Prose Volume 1 collects the three vo