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Alexandra Ares

Alexandra Ares (born Alexandra Grigorescu) is a Romanian-American novelist, playwright, theatre critic, screenwriter, and television producer.^[1] She writes in both English and Romanian. In 2024, she received the Romanian Academy's Ion Luca Caragiale Prize for Dramaturgy, becoming the first woman playwright of the 21st century to receive this distinction.^[2][3]

She began her career as a television producer at TVR (Romanian national television) in the 1990s and moved to the United States in 1998, subsequently publishing novels in both the United States and Romania as well as two volumes of plays. She divides her time between Manhattan and Bucharest.^[4]

Alexandra Ares was born Alexandra Grigorescu in Bucharest, Romania, the daughter of playwright Dinu Grigorescu and Despina Grigorescu. She graduated from the Department of Theatre Studies (Teatrologie) at the National University of Theatre and Film "I.L. Caragiale" (UNATC) in Bucharest. She later earned a doctorate in Contemporary American Drama from the same institution, and a postgraduate certificate in Global Economic Policy and International Relations from the London School of Economics.^[1][5]

While still a student, Ares began working as an editor and producer in the Theatre Division of TVR (signed as Alexandra Grigorescu), producing dozens of episodes for the programmes Gong, Scena, and Maeștrii Teatrului Românesc, including Profil Victor Rebengiuc la 60 de ani (1993), O anumită stare de spirit cu Alexandru Darie (1995), Avignon (1995), Amintiri din viitor (1997), and the docudrama Danaidele la New York with George Ivașcu (1997).

In 1998, Ares emigrated to New York City, where she worked as a TVR correspondent and later for CBS News Network News Service and various American news syndicates (1999–2005), then for the United Nations General Assembly (2005) and UNDP (2006).^[4] She is a member of PEN America, the Union of Romanian Writers, and UNITER (the Romanian Theatre Union). She is vice-president of the Fundația Spirit Românesc (Romanian Spirit Foundation), which publishes the monthly cultural magazine Rinocerul and the Ghepardul publishing house.^[1] She adopted the pen name Alexandra Ares after beginning to write in English in 2005.

Ares made her literary debut in 2005 with two volumes launched at the Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest. The first, Exilată în trecut ("Stranded in the Past", Cartea Românească), is a semi-autobiographical work. The second, Sam Shepard: Un rebel al rigorii mortale (Aldine), is a critical biography of the American playwright, actor, and musician Sam Shepard. A revised and expanded edition was published after Shepard's death in 2017 (Tracus Arte, 2018) and won the Bucharest Writers' Association Prize in 2019.^[6]

Her novel Dream Junkies was published in Romania as Visătoarele (Polirom, 2008), where it became an unexpected bestseller. It was subsequently published in the United States (2012) and was a finalist for the Book of the Year Award (BOTYA) sponsored by ForeWord Reviews of Chicago.^[7]

My Life on Craigslist (first published 2009) was described by Publishers Weekly as "chick lit with a twist" and selected as a Top Reviewers' Pick by Midwest Book Review.^[8][9] It was a finalist for the Best Books Award (Women's Fiction) offered by USA Book News of Los Angeles in 2011.^[10] The novel was published in Romania (Polirom, 2012) as Viața mea pe net and became a top-10 e-book bestseller for over 20 weeks.^[11]

The Other Girl (2012) won the Next Generation Indie Award for Best Novella in New York.^[12]

Ares has written two published volumes of plays. Her play Waking Beauty (Frumoasa adormită și trezită) premiered as a stage reading at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Bucharest in 2014, with actress Daniela Nane in the lead role. It was produced for Radio România Cultural (the National Radio Theatre) in November 2019, directed by Diana Mihailopol, with Nicoleta Lefter in the title role. The production was nominated for the UNITER Prize for Best Radio Production in 2020, and won the audience award in the Radio Theatre category. Nicoleta Lefter won the Best Debut award at the international Grand Prix Nova festival of radio plays.^[13] The play has been published in English, Romanian, and Turkish (translated by Zeynep Nutku, Mitos Boyut, Istanbul, 2010).

Her play Undeva, Cândva sau Youthtopia (Somewhere, Sometime, or Youthtopia) won the Romanian Academy's Ion Luca Caragiale Prize for Dramaturgy for the year 2022, awarded at the ceremony held on 4 December 2024 in the Aula of the Romanian Academy.^[2][3] Ares was the first woman playwright of the 21st century to receive this distinction. The prize, named after Romania's greatest classical playwright, is one of the most prestigious literary awards in Romania.

Her plays have been staged in Romania, the United States, the Republic of Moldova, and Kazakhstan. The play Frumoasă și cool was co-produced by the Satiricus National Theatre of Chișinău (Republic of Moldova) and the Al. Davila Theatre of Pitești, Romania. O bunică de milioane, a comedy co-written with Dinu Grigorescu, has been performed at several Romanian theatres including the Playrights Theater (Teatrul Dramaturgilor din București, 2022) and the Comedy Theater in Bucharetss (Teatrul de Comedie din București, 2019) with Olga Delia Mateescu in the title role).

In 2022, the Romanian Academy published Alexandra Ares: Teatru (Romanian Academy Press, Contemporary Theatre Collection), containing six plays: the dramas Youthtopia and Waking Beauty, the comedies Weekend at the beach and A million dollar grandma, and the short plays aThe Park and Memorial of Pleasurecerii. This volume was nominated for the Union of Romanian Writers Prize for Best Theatre Book in 2022.^[14]

Director Andrei Șerban has described Ares as "a writer from the new wave of the 21st century with three identities — Romanian, American, and global — whose plays are original, modern, and each very different in character."^[15]

Director and writer Alexa Visarion has written that Ares "thinks with both soul and mind and conceives conflictual structures through rationality with a poetic undercurrent... [She] explores the unprecedented landscape of the human under all the stylistic determinations that contemporary dramaturgy can offer."^[16]

• Exilată în trecut, Cartea Românească (2005)

• Visătoarele, Polirom (2008)

• Viața mea pe net, Polirom (2012)

• Paradisul perfecționat (short prose), Liternet (2021)

• Dream Junkies (2013; BOTYA Award finalist, ForeWord Reviews)^[7]

• My Life on Craigslist (2009, 2010, 2011 editions; Publishers Weekly Starred Pick; Midwest Book Review Starred Pick; finalist, Best Books USA 2011)^[8][9]

• The Other Girl (2012; winner, Best Indie Novella, Next Generation Indie Awards, New York)^[12]

• Manhattan Chronicles: New York on the Rocks (ebook, 2012; Readers Favorite Starred Pick)

• Alexandra Ares: Teatru, Romanian Academy Press, Contemporary Theatre Collection (2022) — contains Youthtopia, Waking Beauty / Frumoasa adormită și trezită, Weekend la mare, O bunică de milioane, Parcul, Memorialul Plăcerii

• O bunică de milioane (co-written with Dinu Grigorescu), Ghepardul (2018)

• Magazinul de bărbați (short plays), Ghepardul (2012)

• Uyanan Güzel (Turkish translation of Waking Beauty by Zeynep Nutku), Mitos Boyut, Istanbul (2010)

• Waking Beauty / Frumoasa adormită și trezită, Ghepardul, bilingual edition (2005)

• Waking Beauty (English edition), Smart Media New York (2006)

• Sam Shepard: Rebelul Rigorii Mortale, 2nd revised edition, Tracus Arte (2018) — winner, Bucharest Writers' Association Prize 2019

• Sam Shepard: Un rebel al rigorii mortale, 1st edition, Aldine (2005)

• Ion Luca Caragiale Prize, Romanian Academy, for the play Undeva, Cândva sau Youthtopia (2024, for the year 2022)^[2]

• Nomination, Union of Romanian Writers Prize, Best Theatre Book, for Alexandra Ares: Teatru (2022)

• Dumitru Solomon Prize ("Book of the Year"), Bucharest Writers' Association, for Sam Shepard: Rebelul Rigorii Mortale (2019)

• Next Generation Indie Award, Best Novella, for The Other Girl, New York (2012)^[12]

• Nomination, UNITER Prize, Best Radio Production, for Frumoasa adormită și trezită, directed by Diana Mihailopol (2020)

• Nomination, BOTYA Award (ForeWord Reviews, Chicago), for Dream Junkies, women's fiction category

• Nomination, Readers Favorite International Award (Miami), for My Life on Craigslist, satire category

• Nomination, Best Books USA (US Book News, Los Angeles), for My Life on Craigslist, satire category (2011)

• Official website

• Alexandra Ares at Publishers Weekly

• Alexandra Ares at Goodreads

• Romanian Academy Prizes 2022 (PDF) — confirms Caragiale Prize

• Rinocerul magazine announcement of the Caragiale Prize [[Category:Romanian novelists]] [[Category:Romanian women novelists]] [[Category:Romanian dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:Romanian women dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:Romanian emigrants to the United States]] [[Category:American women novelists]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:People from Bucharest]] [[Category:Writers from New York City]] [[Category:National University of Theatre and Film alumni]] [[Category:London School of Economics alumni]] [[Category:PEN America members]] [[Category:21st-century Romanian women writers]] [[Category:21st-century American women writers]]