Time, Death and the Unspeakable Secret

The Romanian writer Mircea Eliade is best known in the English-speaking world as an influential Historian of Religion, author of such works as The Sacred and the Profane and The Myth of the Eternal Return. However, Eliade’s body of work is much broader, and throughout his life he kept the world of fiction and mysticism very close to his heart. Starting at the age of fourteen, Eliade continuously produced works of fiction alongside his academic work. This volume consists of six of his best short stories, taken from over a 30-year period, starting in 1959 with A Fourteen-Year-Old Photograph – the tale of a distance healing in which the patient claims miracle while the healer admits artifice - and including perhaps his most famous short story, the time-shifting At the Gypsies, and culminating with In the Shadow of a Lily, the last story Eliade is known to have written. Each of these stories is dense with allusions and interwoven with connections and references drawn from the imagination and vast knowledge of a great man. Who knows what secrets they may conceal? One thing is for sure - they will repay repeated close reading, but will also charm on the first encounter.

The Romanian writer Mircea Eliade is best known in the English-speaking world as an influential Historian of Religion, author of such works as The Sacred and the Profane and The Myth of the Eternal Return. However, Eliade’s body of work is much broader, and throughout his life he kept the world of fiction and mysticism very close to his heart. Starting at the age of fourteen, Eliade continuously produced works of fiction alongside his academic work. This volume consists of six of his best short stories, taken from over a 30-year period, starting in 1959 with A Fourteen-Year-Old Photograph – the tale of a distance healing in which the patient claims miracle while the healer admits artifice - and including perhaps his most famous short story, the time-shifting At the Gypsies, and culminating with In the Shadow of a Lily, the last story Eliade is known to have written. Each of these stories is dense with allusions and interwoven with connections and references drawn from the imagination and vast knowledge of a great man. Who knows what secrets they may conceal? One thing is for sure - they will repay repeated close reading, but will also charm on the first encounter.