WHEN A FEW YEARS AGO I ARRIVED, as a refugee, in the West, my ardent desire to speak about what and how life was under the Romanian dictatorship - and, more importantly, the lessons one could draw from such an experience - clashed with the sense that the entire 'repertoire' of Eastern European dissenters had become saturated, as the suffering and pain had long since become commonplaces that were either classified or even commercialized.

What primarily interested me to discuss, in the initial phase of my exile, was the relationship between the writer, Power, and the not-so-innocent, oppressed masses. And, of course, the relationship of the writer with his vulnerable regime. Over time, I developed a profound skepticism towards political kitsch, becoming increasingly suspicious of the labels that manipulate us. A skepticism and suspicion that did not wane in the slightest.

As an outsider to both systems - Eastern Europe and Western society - I could not ignore the dual irony of the situation. Many questions piled up in the early years of my exile, during the difficult transition from one side of the world to the other, a transition that was not much different from a leap into the void. The essays at hand, which adhere to the rules of a dialectical and journalistic rhetoric, all address the relationship between the writer, on one side, and totalitarian ideology and society on the other, in a country where the political tradition was not always the best possible and where the dictatorship of recent decades was a picturesque amalgamation of brutality and farce, opportunism and demagoguery.

The tragedy of totalitarianism is not easily forgotten, nor is its comedy, as they are inseparable. Anything that was politically related seemed contaminated. Not only Power, but also the resistance against it. A marginal element of a marginal situation, the writer becomes, in such a case, the symbol of the deadlock of the whole society.

My nostalgia is composed of people and books, pain, hopes, anger - in short, all that gave soul and vitality to that unique country, which is called the life of a person. Too often, the Good is silent and discreet, executing complex maneuvers to avoid the noisy aggression of Evil. And Truth, which survives fragmentarily within ambiguity, finds refuge in a dark and creatively coded language.