Enlightening interview with Mircea Cărtărescu, author of Blinding (trans. by Sean Cotter), by Audun Lindholm in The Quarterly Conversation:

To the contrary, I would say that I have not actually exploredBucharest during the past fifteen years; I have invented the city. The Bucharest of Blinding is a complete construct. As the title of the essay implies, it is “My Bucharest.” Today, it is not a particularly good place to live, a crowded metropolis with three million people, too many cars, and heavy pollution—not least of all noise pollution. It has become a symbol of ruthless capitalism, a place where industrial magnates and oil tycoons arrogantly outbid each other in defiance of the rest of the population. It is also a dangerous city to live in.

The Bucharest I write about is quite different. It is the Bucharest of my childhood and youth. Objectively speaking, the city was far more beautiful then, but for me it was something more, a miracle, a marvel to the young child wherever he looked. The child is a bricoleur, one who assembles his world using whatever he can get his hands on. So you see, I have a complicated love/hate relationship with Bucharest: When I started writing Blinding, love was the driving force. In recent years I have begun to dislike the city more and more. Today, Bucharest is a construction site for ruins.