Grigore Cugler

Like Apunake, his other works constituted attacks on literary and social conventions. In his sketch story Match nul ("Match Ending in a Draw"), Cugler depicted a boxing competition in which four people take part, having for its referee a conferencing hajduk, and ending in "cordiality". The series on cookbooks (eponymously titled Carte de bucate), sees Cugler advising on how to prepare items such as "Parisian mountain oysters", which involves the cook singing romanzas to the ingredients, or "Plumpy breasts" and "Tongue à la Princesse". Recipes may turn to off-topic statements, as is the case for the text recommending the "mountain oysters": "At the moment she rose from the divan and I saw her dishevelled hair reaching below her midsection, like a white silk cloak, but, whatever, why talk about it, these are things that one needs to see, not read about, I have decided, without any more doubt, in favor of short curly hair, that answers to caresses with glee and comeliness." This characteristic, Manolescu notes, was an illustration of the writer's technique as subtly outlined in the cookbooks' preface: "The hardest thing when one writes a cookbook is not to stray away from the topic. In what concerns me, I can say, without any sort of exaggeration, that, usually, I appeal more to women with fat legs than to those with slender legs. This simple detail is, I do believe, sufficient proof of my culinary intentions." Prin Zăvoi, a prose work, is partly written as a dialog between two lovers, in which the phrase "When I receive a letter, I copy it and read the copy" is repeated several times. Other prose fragments include Florica, which takes the shape of two telephone conversations between the author and a woman named Florica Diaconescu, who shares her strange visions, and the false biography of a non-existing poet named Haralamb Olaru. Among his poems is the Spanish-language Dos hermanas ("Two Sisters"), about two women falling in love with the same man and deciding not to fight over him for lack of bullets, and the assonant French-language Catulle, l'émule de ma mulle ("Catullus, the Emulator of My Mule"), which ends with the death of a suitcase. A Romanian-language piece, titled Cântec de leagăn ("Lullaby"), reads: Ruja argued that there was an intrinsic connection between Cugler's training as a musician and the pleasant sound of his lyrics. This, he proposed, was the case of pieces where "the absurd was reached" through "the alteration of regular meanings", but where the text was nonetheless arranged with intent. One of them read:

Cugler's literary work was traditionally ignored at home and abroad, a fact which Florin Manolescu attributes to the perception that he was merely "a dabbler". Also according to Manolescu, the author found it hard to fit in the framework of his adoptive Latin American literature. The tendency to reject Cugler's writings began early: as Manolescu noted, he was not reviewed at all in George Călinescu's History of Romanian Literature, which first saw print in 1941. Overall, Paul Cernat concluded, no work of literary criticism published during the interwar period ever mentioned his Apunake. In Communist Romania, he was almost never publicly mentioned. One exception to this rule is a fugitive 1983 note written by critic Constantin Ciopraga, who simply described Cugler as one of Urmuz's epigones, and argued that he lacked Urmuz's concision. In 1969, at a time when the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime offered a degree of liberalization, Surrealist writer Saşa Pană included Grigore Cugler in his anthology of Romanian avant-garde texts. He was not however present in similar collections, including the one edited by Ovid Crohmălniceanu. This tendency, Cernat argues, was owed in large part to Cugler's enduring status as an anti-communist, which prevented his writings from being mentioned or recuperated, in contrast to those of Urmuz. While officially rejected, the writer was reportedly earning status in counter-culture and among dissidents: novelist and anti-communist activist Paul Goma recounted that deportees to the Bărăgan learned his texts by heart. Similarly, the Romanian diaspora was instrumental in preserving his legacy, beginning with 1950 reprints of his works in various exile magazines. Many of his literary pieces, which he himself had gathered in a dossier, survived after being copied by Ştefan Baciu, who kept his version at his residence in Honolulu and published excerpts from it in Mele, the journal of which he was editor. A posthumous 1975 edition of Vi-l prezint pe Ţeavă, with one of Cugler's autobiographical essays, was printed in Madrid, Spain, at the expense of Nicolae Petra, and illustrated with the author's own drawings. Alongside the Lovinescu interview (broadcast in 1972), he was the subject of a series of shows aired by BBC Romanian edition, first aired in February 1966 and titled De la Apunake citire ("Readings from Apunake"). Apunake's work was rediscovered at home after the Revolution of 1989. During the 1990s, the author became the subject of academic studies and had his work included in several anthologies. At the same time, he earned a small but dedicated following among the younger local writers. The Jimbolia-based Apunake literary club was established in his honor during 2003. In 2006, Cugler's writings were printed in a German-language edition, compiled by Romanian-born academic Horst Fassel on the basis of texts preserved by linguist Eugenio Coşeriu and titled Apunake. Eine andere Welt ("Apunake. Another World"). Cugler's works were printed in various editions by several publishing houses, beginning with a 1996 edition of his Apunake and a 1998 reprint of Afară-de-Unu-Singur in Manuscriptum magazine. In 2007, it was announced that director Alexandru Tocilescu was preparing a dramatization of Apunake, to be produced by the Comedy Theater in Bucharest. In his adoptive Peru, Cugler was also progressively acknowledged as a writer and musician. In 1978, six years after his death, the magazine Caretas allocated space to an article outlining his career. On March 23, 2002, the Cultural Center of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima hosted a concert dedicated to his memory. Grigore Cugler and Ulla Dyrssen had three daughters together: Christina, born in Stockholm; Margaret, born in Oslo; and Alexandra, born in Lima. When his children were growing up, he jokingly nicknamed his first- and second-born, respectively, Asta (Romanian for "This one") and Aia ("That one").

In 1918, Cugler moved to Bucharest, where he studied at the University's Faculty of Law and the Music Conservatory. His teachers at the latter institution were celebrated musicians such as George Enescu, who reportedly held Cugler in high esteem, Alfons Castaldi, and Mihail Jora. The composer of several waltzes and lieder, Cugler won the Enescu Award for musical creativity in 1926. After 1927, he was assigned to a succession of diplomatic posts in Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and ultimately Norway. According to literary critic Florin Manolescu, he also represented Romania in Bratislava, at the time part of Czechoslovakia. While in Stockholm, he met Ulla Gerda Lizinca Matilda Dyrssen, also known as Ulrike or Ulrica Dyrssen, daughter of a Swedish diplomat and granddaughter of a Swedish Navy commander, and, in 1937, married her in Bucharest. He was an adept of anthroposophy. In 1933–1934, he debuted as a writer with a series of unusual sketch stories, poems and aphorisms, all of which were first published the magazine Vremea. It is however probable that his earliest literary experiments were published by his cousin Petru Comarnescu in the magazine Tiparnița Literară around 1927–1928. Also in 1934, he completed and printed his first volume, titled Apunake și alte fenomene ("Apunake and Other Phenomenons"). The writing was illustrated with his own drawings, which he himself fancied as a means to cause "unease" to his readers. A subject of interest in the literary community, it generated a following among young intellectuals, some of whom titled themselves apunakiști ("apunakists"), while Cugler himself became confounded with his character and came to bear his name. In 1946, he issued another volume of his works, named Vi-l prezint pe Țeavă ("Meet Țeavă"—țeavă being the Romanian for "pipe"). Grigore Cugler was opposed to the Romanian Communist Party's takeover of the country, effected in successive stages after World War II (see Socialist Republic of Romania). In late 1947, just after the Communist Ana Pauker took over as foreign minister, he decided to resign his diplomatic position, motivating his gesture in a letter to Pauker as the consequence of "the new orientation in Romanian government policies, which part with my convictions and sentiments". Manolescu argued that the choice of words was in contrast with the usual perception of their author as "trifling". Reportedly, Cugler's action caused consternation in Bucharest, where no one had yet attempted to confront Ana Pauker using such terms. He himself spoke of his departure as an "unlimited vacation", and, shortly before leaving, handed down copies of his texts for Vremea to his friend Petru Dumitraşcu.