Valer Popa

I am a writer born in Bucharest, Romania. I immigrated to the states through the Visa Lottery Program at the age of seven. Romania, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, its history and people, are the primary focus of my writing, which I tackle in both my Fiction and Nonfiction. In my work, I aim to excavate themes and stories that have been either overlooked or distorted by historical forces.  

My essays touch mostly on forgotten facets of Romanian and Eastern European History, as well as personal memoir, and have been published in The New York Times, Chicago Magazine, The Believer, and Epoch, among others. These pieces are mostly ways to reexamine and reframe history--collective, personal, as well as the link between them--unearthing urgent topics of discussion that have long been suppressed or misunderstood. My writing for The New York Times, for instance, explored the various roles that Romania played in the Holocaust, as well as my own familial connections to these events.  

My fiction, on the other hand, has a similar purpose though perhaps a different approach. In my novels, I try to inhabit, revitalize, and reimagine the past, so that readers may better appreciate its connection to the present. The themes I'm most drawn to involve collective amnesia, historical trauma, and individual agency in the face of more powerful forces. My first novel was a finalist for the 2022 Novel Prize, hosted by New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions, and Giramondo Press and I am currently working on another. 

I have taught both fiction and nonfiction workshop courses for several years.  The best writing, I feel, does not come merely from mastering a set of rules and conventions but rather from locating a genuine desire to say something, even when the specifics may not be fully formed at the outset. Across the various writing disciplines in which I’ve taught, this translates to a number of scenarios: at times, it is the desire to impart meaning on a past event; the desire to bring forth an imagined character and make them live and breathe; or the wish to thoroughly flesh out a theme or idea embedded within another text. I find that eliminating the clutter and pinpointing the appropriate “desire” for each student, enables him or her to do their best work.

• Epoch, “Turkentaube” (Forthcoming), Spring 2025
• Epoch, “Argos,” Spring 2024 
• The Believer Magazine, “Swamp Monsters,” July 14, 2020  
• Chicago Magazine, “Vanished City,” November Issue, 2018  
• Chicago Magazine, “Cold Case: Remembering—and forgetting—the Murder of a University of Chicago Professor,” September Issue, 2018
• Ploughshares, “Reading The Magic Mountain in the Age of Populism,” Spring 2018 
• The New York Times, “The Return of the Rhinoceros,” March 30, 2018