The Forbidden Forest

The Forbidden Forest (Romanian: Noaptea de Sânziene; French: Forêt interdite) is a 1955 novel by the Romanian writer Mircea Eliade. The story takes place between 1936 and 1948 in several European cities, and follows Stefan Vizeru, a Romanian man on a spiritual quest. The book was written between the years 1949 and 1954. Eliade himself considered it to be his best novel. The novel contains several elements and themes which also appear in the author's scholarly work, such as initiation rites and sacred time.The novel was first published in French translation in 1955 and in its original Romanian in 1971. An English translation was published in 1978.