Oana Orlea, a free conscience against the Romanian totalitarism
Keywords:
totalitarian regime, freedom of thought, dictatorship, French and francophone literature, Oana Orlea, fiction, autobiographical writingAbstract
After the Second World War, the totalitarian regime was installed in Romania, opening a long period during which freedom of thought, of speech or religious were forbidden, as the “new man” had to be created, in an Orwellian atmosphere. Among those who opposed dictatorship, Oana Orlea (1936-2014) was a prominent figure, as her writings, published in France, pointed out the insanity of Ceausescu’s dictatorship. This paper attempts to deal with some of the most important characteristics of Oana Orlea’s writings: Unsosieencavale (The Runaway Lookalike), 1986 and Lesannéesvolées (The Stolen Years), 1991, in which fiction and autobiographical writing contribute to defend the victim’s right to individual freedom in the context of dictatorship and to testify against any intrusion into individual freedom.
