”A Writer’s Diary” by Nicolae Esinencu: Identity Markers of the Diary Character

Abstract

“A writer’s diary (1972-2012)” by Nicolae Esinencu represents an interesting case of (re)construction of the self and essential self-definition in relation to external (social, literary, political) and internal (crises, anguish, revelations) events. We will follow in the writing the key defining identity markers for the diary character, this narrative self par excellence, from the effort to relive the “first self” related to the symbol of the parental home and the emblematic figures of the parents in the first chapter of the diary, to the attempts of autoscopy and disclosure of the essential self that stems from a reflexive consciousness bent on understanding the world and preoccupied with the national drama (the struggle for the Romanian language, the Latin script, the exit from the administrative tutelage of the Moscow Writers’ Union). Besides these, we will also discover the internal dialogue, the inner turmoil in the later chapters, which configure a search for the essences of the writer in a conflicting relationship with time.