Editing Gherasim Luca (section)

== Biography ==

Born in [[Bucharest]] the son of [[Jew]]ish tailor Berl Locker (died 1914), he spoke [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]], [[Romanian language|Romanian]], [[German language|German]], and [[French language|French]]. During 1938, he traveled frequently to [[Paris]] where he was introduced to surrealists. [[World War II]] and the official [[antisemitism]] in Romania forced him into local [[exile]]. During the pre-[[Communist Romania|Communist]] period of Romanian independence, he founded a surrealist artists group with [[Gellu Naum]], Paul Păun, Virgil Teodorescu and [[Dolfi Trost]].

His first publications, including poems in French followed. He was the inventor of [[cubomania]] and, in 1945 with Dolfi Trost, authored "[[Dialectique de la dialectique|Dialectic of Dialectic]]", a [[manifesto]] of the surrealist movement [[Surautomatism]]. Harassed in Romania and caught while trying to flee the country, he left Romania in 1952, and moved to Paris through [[Israel]].

There he worked among others with [[Jean Arp]], [[Paul Celan]], François Di Dio and [[Max Ernst]], producing numerous [[collage]]s, drawings, objects, and text-installations. From 1967, his reading sessions took him to [[Stockholm]], [[Oslo]], [[Geneva]], [[New York City]], and [[San Francisco]]. The 1988 TV-portrait by Raoul Sanglas, ''Comment s'en sortir sans sortir'', made him famous for a larger readership.

At the end of the 1980s, Luca's residence building in Montmartre was deemed insalubrious by the French authorities. In order to be relocated to another building, he had to justify his citizenship. As he had been without one ever since leaving Romania, he acquired French citizenship by marrying his long time partner.    

On 9 February 1994, at the age of 80, he committed suicide by jumping into the [[Seine]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_01/3558 |title=The Passive Vampire |last=Gammel |first=Irene |work=Bookforum |accessdate=13 June 2009}}</ref>