Norman Manea grew up doubly cursed: first he had to survive the Nazis and then the communist dictators in his native Romania. His dire experience forged a writer.

Norman Manea, , trans. from the Romanian by Angela Jianu. . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-374-28256-1. Manea's life is simple synoptically, though his memoir is not.