The Romanian critic Eugen Simion contests leading twentieth-century critics who deny the author a place in criticism by maintaining that the author's life can tell us nothing about his or her literary works. Simion demonstrates that writers, including Proust, Malraux, and Barthes among others, who eschew the old biographical criticism themselves look into authors' lives-most notably, their own--for insights into the persons behind their works.

Eugene Simion is professor of twentieht-century literature at the University of Bucharest, vice president of the Romanian Academy, and the author of ten books of criticsm, including the four-volume History of Contemporary Romanian Literature.