Dan Sociu was born in Botosani, Romania, in 1978, and currently resides in Bucharest. He is the author of the novel Urbancolia and the poetry collections eXcessive songs (named Best Book of the Year by the Romanian Writers’ Association), brother louse, and well-sealed jars, money for another week. In 2007, he was voted the Most Prominent Young Writer by the Younger Writers’ Colloquium in Cluj. Sociu has been called a “Miserablist” by Romanian literary critics, a label that refers to the anti-heroic speaker of many of his poems, his interest in the banal, and his impatience with the preciousness of the Romanian literary tradition.