Grigore Cugler Grigore Cugler ( or " Gregori Cugler " ; also known under the pen name Apunake ; – September 30 , 1972 ) was a Romania n avant - garde short story writer , poet and humorist . Also noted as a graphic artist , composer and violinist , he was a decorated World War I veteran who served as the Romanian Kingdom ' s diplomatic representative in various countries before and after World War II . The grandson of poet Matilda Cugler - Poni , he was the author of unconventional and often irreverentious pieces , which have drawn parallels with the work of Alfred Jarry and Urmuz . Their author was celebrated by some of his generation colleagues for his independent voice in Romanian literature . An anti - communist , Cugler renounced his post in 1947 , just before the establishment of a , and lived the final decades of his life in Peru . Promoted by the Romanian diaspora but largely ignored at home until the Romanian Revolution of 1989 , he became the subject of interest in post - communist literary criticism . Biography . Early life and family . On his paternal side , Cugler descended from an ethnic German family of Austrian nobility . His ancestor , Maximilian von Kugler , was Habsburg Governor of Bukovina in the 1790s . Members of the family had settled in Moldavia by the middle of the 19th century , and his great - grandfather Karl von Kugler , later known as Carol von Cugler , was employed as urban planner in Iaşi , and became a naturalized Romanian citizen . His daughter and Grigore ' s grandmother , Matilda , was a noted poet who associated with the literary society " Junimea " , and whose second husband was chemist Petre Poni . Born in Roznov , Neamţ County , Cugler was the son of Grigore Cugler and his wife Ana , daughter of " Universul " journalist Nicolae Ţincu . He was also the cousin of art critic Petru Comarnescu . Cugler graduated from the Romanian Army ' s college at Dealu Monastery . Later , speaking of himself in the third person , he recalled with irony that his graduation " pleases him to this day . " He served in the World War I Romanian Campaign , was injured , and had his two fingers from his left hand amputated . In his own recollections , he spoke of his own involvement in the war as " a promenade " , and indicated that the medals he received after being wounded in November 1916 were owed to him " not taking cover in time " while defending Piteşti train station against the Central Powers ' forces . He was subsequently present in Moldavia , the only region held by the Romanian authorities after the Central Powers occupied southern Romania . He referred to this period in his life as " dieting " , alluding to the hardships of war , and indicating that this judgment also applied to occupied Bucharest . Interwar literature and diplomatic service . In 1918 , Cugler moved to Bucharest , where he studied at the University ' s Faculty of Law and the Music Conservatory . His teachers at the latter institution was celebrated musicians such as George Enescu , who reportedly held Cugler in high esteem , Alfons Castaldi and Mihail Jora . The composer of several waltz es and lied er , Cugler won the Enescu Award for musical creativity in 1926 . After 1927 , he was assigned to a succession of diplomatic posts in Sweden , Switzerland , Germany , Denmark and ultimately Norway . According to literary critic Florin Manolescu , he also represented Romania in Bratislava , at the time part of Czechoslovakia . While in Stockholm , he met Ulla Gerda Lizinca Matilda Dyrssen , also known as Ulrike or Ulrica Dyrssen , daughter of a Swedish diplomat and granddaughter of a Swedish Navy commander , and , in 1937 , married her in Bucharest . In 1933 - 1934 , he debuted as a writer with a series of unusual sketch stories , poems and aphorism s , all of which were first published the magazine " Vremea " . It is however probable that his earliest literary experiments were published by his cousin Petru Comarnescu in the magazine " Tiparniţa Literară " around 1927 - 1928 . Also in 1934 , he completed and printed his first volume , titled " Apunake şi alte fenomene " ( " Apunake and Other Phenomenons " ) . The writing was illustrated with his own drawings , which he himself fancied as a means to cause " unease " to his readers . A subject of interest in the literary community , it generated a following among young intellectuals , some of whom titled themselves " apunakişti " ( " apunakists " ) , while Cugler himself became confounded with his character and came to bear his name . In 1946 , he issued another volume of his works , named " Vi - l prezint pe Ţeavă " ( " Meet Ţeavă " — " ţeavă " being the Romanian for " pipe " ) . Grigore Cugler was opposed to the Romanian Communist Party ' s takeover of the country , effected in successive stages after World War II ( " see Communist Romania " ) . In late 1947 , just after the Communist Ana Pauker took over as Foreign Minister , he decided to resign his diplomatic position , motivating his gesture in a letter to Pauker as the consequence of " the new orientation in Romanian government policies , which part with my convictions and sentiments " . Manolescu argued that the choice of words was in contrast with the usual perception of their author as " trifling " . Reportedly , Cugler ' s action caused consternation in Bucharest , where no one had yet attempted to confront Ana Pauker using such terms . He himself spoke of his departure as an " unlimited vacation " , and , shortly before leaving , handed down copies of his texts for " Vremea " to his friend Petru Dumitraşcu . Exile and final years . Together with his family , Cugler settled in Peru ' s capital , Lima . Reportedly , he picked his place of exile by randomly setting his finger on a spinning globe . He found a job as an insurance agent by day , indulging his musical passion in the evening , as a violin soloist for the Lima Philharmonic Orchestra . In November 1956 , Peruvian Minister of Education Jorge Basadre appointed Cugler to a government commission supervising the activity of state - financed educational institutions in the field of music ( the Commission for the Study of Musical Culture ) . While in exile , Culger also issued his final volume , " Afară - de - Unu - Singur " ( also spelled " Afară de unul singur " , both titles translating as " Out on One ' s Own " ) , which he issued as a samizdat and only printed in 50 copies . According to its author , the book had an earlier linotype edition , which had been printed in Bucharest before his departure . He defined this earlier volume as " discreet , elegant , but without a watch on its wrist and blowing even in yogurt " ( in reference to the Romanian proverb " He who was once burned by soup will even blow to cool yogurt " ) . Late in his life , he completed various literary pieces such as a mock fairy tale " in cackling style " , and the texts " Amintiri din copilărie " ( " Memories of Childhood " ) , " . . . şi la lume iarăşi date " ( " . . . and Handed Back to the World " ) , and " Cine fuse şi se duse " ( " Who Was It and Now Is Gone " ) . Many of these writings were also illustrated in his own hand , which he amusedly defined as " a worrying aspect " . Cugler maintained contacts with intellectuals of the Romanian diaspora , several of whom were reportedly fascinated by his work and character . Early on , he joined the Romanian National Committee , created by former Premier Nicolae Rădescu as a member of the anti - communist and American - based Assembly of Captive European Nations , serving as its representative in the Peruvian capital . He was visited in Lima by poet Nicolae Petra , as well as by literary promoters Ştefan Baciu and Mircea Popescu , both of whom edited literary magazines for the community of exiles . The former two left memoirs on the period , in which they evidence that Cugler was pining for his native Romania , and that Romanian culture was dominant in his house . In 1968 , he was interviewed for Radio Free Europe by prominent Romanian journalist Monica Lovinescu . Work . Main characteristics and the " Apunake " theme . Cugler wrote his work in Romanian , French and Spanish . In all , he was fluent in eight languages , including dialects of Arabic . On original writer , defined by literary historian Paul Cernat as " eccentric " , Cugler was not affiliated with any of the avant - garde trends . His work is often thought to have , at least in part , owed inspiration to Urmuz , a solitary avant - gardist of early 20th century Romanian literature . However , Manolescu indicates , he made a point of not joining any modernist trend . He never read Urmuz ' s stories , but was probably familiar with works by the rebellious French author Alfred Jarry and his work showed connections with Jarry ' s ’ Pataphysics . In one of his stories , titled " Superbardul " ( " The Super - Bard " ) , Cugler mocked Surrealism and its automatist techniques , depicting an imaginary writer who writes nonsensical syllables on strips of paper which he glues to all sorts of objects , and which he later assembles on a silvery string . It has also been suggested that his personal style bears likeness to a variety of later works , and that it shares traits with the Absurdist plays of Eugène Ionesco . Comparisons have also been made between Cugler and another Absurdist playwright , Samuel Beckett , as well as between him and pessimistic Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran . Other writers whose work was argued to be similar with Cugler ' s include Christian Morgenstern , Lewis Carroll and Daniil Kharms . Manolescu describes Cugler ' s literature as dominated by " a way of being opposed to routine , to ankylosing academism , to casern mentality and , in general , to all of our Pavlovian customs " , while literary historian Alexandru Ruja sees his style and outlook as " the imponderability of writing , [ . . . ] the total liberty of creative attitudes " , stressing that they amounted to " a different way of making literature " . Cugler spoke of his own debut in literature as : " [ I ] started to pick on everybody . " Manolescu proposed that the writer ' s perspective on life was " structuralist " , and that it displayed " an intelligence blessed with an enormous associative capacity in respect to the most diverse patterns , identified as if in jest . " Florin Manolescu noted that these traits were present in the names he picked for his characters , objects , and the imaginary places they are to be found in , names which are often interconnected and usually puns : Kematta ( from " chemata " , " the summoned female " ) , Adu Milmor - t ( from " adu - mi - l mort " , " bring him to me dead " ) , termopil ( a common noun version of Thermopylae , taking the form of manufacturing and commercial terminology ) or Vesquenouille ( a mock Francization of " vezi că nu - i " , " see that it ' s no longer there " ) . He proceeded to define such methods as " literary pantography " . " Apunake " , which centered on an eponymous character , was largely an allegory of Cugler , as he himself was to indicate in his later writings . In Manolescu ' s assessment , it is partly based on themes in Greek literature , owing inspiration to its popular novels , and constitutes a Jarry - like parody of science fiction and technicist subjects . Alexandru Ruja notes that the story disturbs fictional conventions from the very start , by mixing in " the impression of hanging on to a reality subject to the corrosive effect of irony . " The piece debuts with the words : " By the end of the trail through the Nine Thousand Bells stood a wind mill . It was there that Apunake and Kematta experienced their first moments of love . To this day one can see the walls scratched from the inside by Kematta ' s fingernails , and on the doorstep may still read two lines she wrote during one night of passion , more specifically two alexandrine s comprising only the syllable « Ah ! » " Searching for his estranged wife , Apunake travels through space and time , and each of his journey ' s stations , no matter how different or far apart , coincide with the date of July 1 . In one of the episodes , while visiting a forest , Apunake is turned into a rubber ball at the hands of a wizard called " Sportul " ( " The Sport " ) , which allows him to witness how an old woman is pumped up with air in order to become " a champion of free flight " . Eventually reunited with his wife , the character fathers a monstrous child , who reaches enormous proportions and , in what is a reversal of happy end conventionalism , defecates on the entire audience . Other writings . Like " Apunake " , his other works constituted attacks on literary and social conventions . In his sketch story " Match nul " ( " Match Ending in a Draw " ) , Cugler depicted a boxing competition in which four people take part , having for its referee a conferencing hajduk , and ending in " cordiality " . The series on cookbook s ( eponymously titled " Carte de bucate " ) , sees Cugler advising on how to prepare items such as " Parisian mountain oysters " , which involves the cook singing romanza s to the ingredients , or " Plumpy breasts " and " Tongue à la Princesse " . Recipes may turn to off - topic statements , as is the case for the text recommending the " mountain oysters " : " At the moment she rose from the divan and I saw her dishevelled hair reaching below her midsection , like a white silk cloak , but , whatever , why talk about it , these are things that one needs to see , not read about , I have decided , without any more doubt , in favor of short curly hair , that answers to caresses with glee and comeliness . " This characteristic , Manolescu notes , was an illustration of the writer ' s technique as subtly outlined in the cookbooks ' preface : " The hardest thing when one writes a cookbook is not to stray away from the topic . In what concerns me , I can say , without any sort of exaggeration , that , usually , I appeal more to women with fat legs than to those with slender legs . This simple detail is , I do believe , sufficient proof of my culinary intentions . " " Prin Zăvoi " , a prose work , is partly written as a dialog between two lovers , in which the phrase " When I receive a letter , I copy it and read the copy " is repeated several times . Other prose fragments include " Florica " , which takes the shape of two telephone conversations between the author and a woman named Florica Diaconescu , who shares her strange visions , and the false biography of a non - existing poet named Haralamb Olaru . Among his poems is the Spanish - language " Dos hermanas " ( " Two Sisters " ) , about two women falling in love with the same man and deciding not to fight over him for lack of bullets , and the assonant French - language " Catulle , l ' émule de ma mulle " ( " Catullus , the Emulator of My Mule " ) , which ends with the death of a suitcase . A Romanian - language piece , titled " Cântec de leagăn " ( " Lullaby " ) , reads : Ruja argued that there was an intrinsic connection between Cugler ' s training as a musician and the pleasant sound of his lyrics . This , he proposed , was the case of pieces where " the absurd was reached " through " the alteration of regular meanings " , but where the text was nonetheless arranged with intent . One of them read : Legacy . Cugler ' s literary work was traditionally ignored at home and abroad , a fact which Florin Manolescu attributes to the perception that he was merely " a dabbler " . Also according to Manolescu , the author found it hard to fit in the framework of his adoptive Latin American literature . The tendency to reject Cugler ' s writings began early : as Manolescu noted , he was not reviewed at all in George Călinescu ' s " History of Romanian Literature " , which first saw print in 1941 . Overall , Paul Cernat concluded , no work of literary criticism published during the interwar period ever mentioned his " Apunake " . In Communist Romania , he was almost never publicly mentioned . One exception to this rule is a fugitive 1983 note written by critic Constantin Ciopraga , who simply described Cugler as one of Urmuz ' s epigones , and argued that he lacked Urmuz ' s concision . In 1969 , at a time when the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime offered a degree of liberalization , Surrealist writer Saşa Pană included Grigore Cugler in his anthology of Romanian avant - garde texts . He was not however present in similar collections , including the one edited by Ovid Crohmălniceanu . This tendency , Cernat argues , was owed in large part to Cugler ' s enduring status as an anti - communist , which prevented his writings from being mentioned or recuperated , in contrast to those of Urmuz . While officially rejected , the writer was reportedly earning status in counter - culture and among dissidents : novelist and anti - communist activist Paul Goma recounted that deportees to the Bărăgan learned his texts by heart . Similarly , the Romanian diaspora was instrumental in preserving his legacy , beginning with 1950 reprints of his works in various exile magazines . Many of his literary pieces , which he himself had gathered in a dossier , survived after being copied by Ştefan Baciu , who kept his version at his residence in Honolulu and published excerpts from it in " Mele " , the journal of which he was editor . A posthumous 1975 edition of " Vi - l prezint pe Ţeavă " , with one of Cugler ' s autobiographical essays , was printed in Madrid , Spain , at the expense of Nicolae Petra , and illustrated with the author ' s own drawings . Alongside the Lovinescu interview ( broadcast in 1972 ) , he was the subject of a series of shows aired by BBC Romanian edition , first aired in February 1966 and titled " De la Apunake citire " ( " Readings from Apunake " ) . Apunake ' s work was rediscovered at home after the Revolution of 1989 . During the 1990s , the author became the subject of academic studies and had his work included in several anthologies . At the same time , he earned a small but dedicated following among the younger local writers . The Jimbolia - based " Apunake " literary club was established in his honor during 2003 . In 2006 , Cugler ' s writings were printed in a German - language edition , compiled by Romanian - born academic Horst Fassel on the basis of texts preserved by linguist Eugenio Coşeriu and titled " Apunake . Eine andere Welt " ( " Apunake . Another World " ) . Cugler ' s works were printed in various editions by several publishing houses , beginning with a 1996 edition of his " Apunake " and a 1998 reprint of " Afară - de - Unu - Singur " in " Manuscriptum " magazine . In 2007 , it was announced that director Alexandru Tocilescu was preparing a dramatization of " Apunake " , to be produced by the Comedy Theater in Bucharest . In his adoptive Peru , Cugler was also progressively acknowledged as a writer and musician . In 1978 , six years after his death , the magazine " Caretas " allocated space to an article outlining his career . On March 23 , 2002 , the Cultural Center of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima hosted a concert dedicated to his memory . Grigore Cugler and Ulla Dyrssen had three daughters together : Christina , born in Stockholm ; Margaret , born in Oslo ; and Alexandra , born in Lima . When his children were growing up , he jokingly nicknamed his first - and second - born , respectively , " Asta " ( Romanian for " This one " ) and " Aia " ( " That one " ) .