Valery Oisteanu

Valery Oisteanu: is a poet, writer, and artist of the avant-garde. Born in USSR (1943) and educated in Romania. He debuted as a poet with the collection PROSTHESIS in 1970 (Litera Press, Bucharest). At the age of 20, he adopted Dada and Surrealism as a philosophy of art and life and a few years later English as his primary language. Immigrating to New York City in 1972 he has been writing in English for the past 54 years. He is the author of 20 books of poetry a book of short fiction, The King of Penguins (Linear Art Press, 2000). A book of poetry, short fiction & collages: In a Blink of the Third Eye Spuyten Duyvil press NYC 2020 poetry by Valery and collages by Ruth Oisteanu: Here, There and Nowhere Spuyten Duyvil NYC 2024. A new poetry book bilingual Underground of Distorted Memories- Soutertain Des Souvenirs  Deformes (translated in French Pierre Lamarque) La Bage Blanche, Paris 2026. He has won numerous awards including “It’s the end of the World as we know it” Award (Vault Literary Society) 2000, Chivot order of the Chevalier of the Castel for the dissemination of Romanian Avant-Garde in Diaspora, 2010, Dublin, recipient of the Kathy Acker Award, NYC, 2013 and the best poetry book 2020 Privileges in Purgatory, (Romanian translation) Itaca press Dublin.