Famous journalists and writer Andrew Solomon recently came to Romania to launch his most recent book, to give a lecture on gay identity, but also in search of his Romanian ancestors.

While his book launch and speech was at the core of disagreements with the Central University Library management, which refused to host his lecture upon finding out its topic, Solomon took the opportunity to visit the Northern region of Moldova, Dorohoi, where presumably some of his ancestors came from, he wrote in a recent piece for the New Yorker.

Titled „Gay, Jewish, mentally ill, and a sponsor of gipsies in Romania”, the blog piece follows Solomon while trying to find out where his family came from in Romania.

His paternal grandfather and his sister left Romania when he was 16, was processed at Elliss Island and settled in New York City. He made sure his son – Andrew Solomon’s father – had a good education and a good life, Solomon writes in his piece.

„Presumably my forbears had inquiring and capacious minds much like mine and my father’s, and I have often pondered what it would be like to be us and to live like that.”

The full piece in the New Yorker is here.

Andrew Solomon, finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, to meet readers in Romania this June

editor@romania-insider.com