Cătălin Pavel (1976) is a Romanian writer with a PhD in archaeology. His first novel, Aproape a șaptea parte din lume (The seventh part of the world or thereabouts, Humanitas 2010) was published as a result of winning the UniCredit/Bibliofagia national contest for debut novels and went on to receive, from the Ministry of Culture, the Young Writer of 2010 Award. Reviewers noted the cosmopolitan, picaresque character of the novel. The French translation, La septième partie du monde, was published by the Editions Non Lieu in Paris (2017). After a second novel, Nicio clipă Portasar (Portasar not for an instant, Cartea Românească 2015), more Eastern European in setting, the third, Trecerea (The passing, Cartea Românească 2016) went on to claim the National Prose Award Ziarul de Iasi and was nominated to the Writers’ Union Awards for Prose. Critics saw in this novel of “paradoxical psychological responses” a possible script for a Kusturica movie, perhaps unexpected in a book where “the conspiracy of fiction” brings together Islamic, Jewish and Zen parables. A fourth novel, Chihlimbar (Amber), a parodic biography of the Renaissance musician Josquin des Prez, came out in December 2017 (Polirom), earning a dozen reviews in the first 6 months (and accolades for its ”cultural refinement”). Cătălin participated in archaeological excavations in Romania, Germany, France, Morocco, Israel, the UK and particularly Turkey (Troy, Miletus and Gordion). He held doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford and the Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne.