“This is a biographical portrait of my son, Matthew, who was born on 24 August 1977 in Bloomington, Indiana, and who died on 1 March 2003 in his hometown not yet twenty-six” (p. vii). So begins the eloquent and poignant tribute of Matei Calinescu to his son Matthew who had autism. Professor Calinescu was a native of Romania, immigrating to the US in 1973, and was a professor emeritus of Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. Matthew’s Enigma was originally published in Romanian in 2003, but was only published in English a few months before the author’s own death in June 2009. …
