John Updike

American literary giant John Updike travelled to Romania in 1964 on a state-sponsored trip as US cultural ambassador.

Cristina Mateescu, 28.11.2025, 14:00

Already a major voice in contemporary American literature, a 32-year-old John Updike embarked in the autumn of 1964 on a journey behind the Iron Curtain that also took him to Romania, apart from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. Updike was serving as his country’s cultural ambassador. His state-sponsored trip was part of a cultural exchange programme between the US and the Soviet Union, which had been signed in 1958, at a time of relaxation in US-Soviet relations after Stalin’s death.

Updike would later write three stories drawing on his trips to Soviet Russia, Romania and Bulgaria, Rich in Russia, Bech in Rumania and The Bulgarian Poetess, in which a fictional Jewish writer called Henry Bech travels through communist Europe on a cultural mission to establish contacts with local writers and promote American values.

During his short stay in Romania, John Updike got to meet Romanian writers, attended a local theatre production and spoke to Romanian journalists, including Doina Caramzulescu from Radio Bucharest, as Radio Romania International was known at the time. We’ll play excerpts from that interview in today’s show, in which John Updike shares his impressions about Romania and its literary scene and speaks about his own writing, as well as American literature, among others.