Mircea Cărtărescu. The rewriting of the fantastic

This essay analyzes the fantastic elements in the narrative work of the Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu. In particular, it investigates the links established between some of his stories and certain works by Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, paying attention to motifs of fantastic literature, such as the Double, the mythification of childhood or dreamlike episodes. This comparative study reveals some of the keys to the Romanian writer’s poetics and shows how he rewrites, with a postmodern and very particular rhetoric, the fantastic. It also examines his most recent works (＂Cegador＂ and ＂Solenoide＂), fantastic autofictional works, in which the author invents an identity, constructing an imaginary autobiography, in which the self-referential, the mythical and the magical converge.