His main interests in the area of historical research include the feminine experience of totalitarian rule, the connection between official propaganda and the actual lives of working class members, and the development of cultural attitudes in relation to communist censorship.

Or Something like That"), first performed in 2002 by Bucharest's Green Hours fringe theater under the name of Cu cuțitul la os ("A Knife Cut to the Bone"); the second such text, published in 1996, was called Vinovatul să facă un pas înainte ("Will the Guilty Man Take One Step Forward").

After joining fellow Club 8 member Gheo in authoring a study of social history and microsociology, investigating impact of communist rule on Romanian women, published in 2008 as Tovarășe de drum.

[16] She believes him to be of the same rank as Cezar Paul-Bădescu, Victoria Comnea, Radu Pavel Gheo, Ana Maria Sandu, Cecilia Ștefănescu and Lucian Dan Teodorovici, but below the "very good" category of Petre Barbu, T. O. Bobe, Filip Florian, Florin Lăzărescu, Sorin Stoica and Bogdan Suceavă.

"[18] Poet and critic Octavian Soviany notes: "Dan Lungu refuses [...] the monarchic perspective of the demiurge-novelist who always gazes on the world from above [...], for he treats his characters 'from one equal to another', places himself among them, advancing a vision 'from within' which confers upon the narrative some extra authenticity and naturalness.

"[19] Researcher Cristina Chevereșan sees a special link between the works of Lungu, Florian and Stoica, "epics of life lived in the often suffocating circle of a collectivity as scanty and organically welded as it is oppressive".

[4] His main influences include foreign authors Peter Handke, Michel Houellebecq and Elfriede Jelinek,[4] while his imagery has drawn comparisons with the films of Yugoslavian-born director Emir Kusturica.

[24] Commenting on Lungu's relation to a larger historical and stylistic context, Burța-Cernat wrote: "the prose writers of the newer category, the 'social anthropologists', do not aim to reinvent the world by capturing it within fabulous scenarios, but merely to describe it.

"[23] This "minimalist" tendency, she noted, falls in line with 1980 authors—Nedelciu, Teodorescu, Sorin Preda, Ioan Groșan—, and also includes Lungu's colleagues Stoica, Teodorovici, Radu Aldulescu, Andrei Bodiu and Călin Torsan.

"[2] Some of the book's characters have to deal with circumstances that test their limits: in Buldozeristul, the protagonist uses his machine to bury his wife and daughter after failing to speed up procedures for a proper funeral; an old age pensioner who seduces women while queuing for gas cylinder refills; and, in the eponymous writing, a teenager who is publicly humiliated by having his hands and arms covered in spit.

[2] The reportage piece detailing Lungu's trip to Transnistria notably depicts the preservation of Soviet and communist symbolism throughout the region, the officially sanctioned imposition of Moldovan Cyrillic even to the point where schoolteachers use it for transliterating French-language texts, and the religious aspects of local sports.

"[8] The play Nuntă la parter pursues a different path, being structured as an abstract parable: characters known as the Soldiers, isolated from the outside world, are pushed by a commanding voice into performing sinister and absurd acts, including the so-called "wedding on the ground floor", while vaguer exterior sounds provide samples of communist slogans, chanting and, eventually, violence associated with the Revolution.

"[2] In his review of the book, literary critic Dan C. Mihăilescu resonated with such observations, noting their revelatory aspect: "once confronted with the accounts [...], I convinced myself once and for all that the things which, under Ceaușism, I could still believe united us into a solidarity of suffering, are as false as can be.

"[25] With Construcția identității într-o societate totalitară, seen by Cernat as "a study up to the international standards" and a work of "entomological precision", Dan Lungu focuses on how writers and intellectuals related to ideological pressures, explores in particular the theme of "resistance through culture" (as opposed to outspoken dissidence).

Hence the duplicity, the lack of solidarity among the 'resisters' within a patriarchal, mostly rural, country..."[2] Historian Cristian Vasile sees Lungu's study as akin to the contributions of anthropologist Katherine Verdery, in that it defines the writers' individual roles in "the process of transforming society and creating the new man", while serving as an investigation of social identity constructs.

[12] While Terian believes Raiul găinilor to be primarily calm and distant,[21] his colleague Mircea Iorgulescu, who prefaced the work, argued: "Under a benign and slow-going appearance, the novel's world is actually terrifying.

[21] It ultimately deals with the impact of post-Revolution economic transition, reflected in the characters' ambiguous memories of Ponzi schemes, or projected in the account of how the closure of non-lucrative factories prevented the employees from continuing to steal industrial materials.

[12] Băieți de gașcă, which comprises 11 short stories, is noted for its alternation of purist aesthetics and challenging use of Romanian slang,[19][20][24] while its attempt to isolate pieces of the everyday creates a link with reportage.

[24] Noting the difficulties of this approach, particularly in those stories which explore the marginal areas of Romanian society, Crețu commends Dan Lungu for opting in favor of first-person narratives written from within, which allow him to preserve the authenticity of uncultured or ungrammatical speech.

"[24] Daniel Cristea-Enache highlights the individualized use of language and gestures, from the "infantile repetitiousness" characteristic of little girls to the "style of tricky young men", believing these traits to be in line with "the exploitation of orality" by authors such as Sorin Stoica and Ovidiu Verdeș.

"[24] Cristea-Enache, who praised Băieți de gașcă for displaying "natural breathing", "stylistic mobility" and "dexterity", also argued: "When the young prose author will manage to inject more substance into both his stories and novels, we shall have in him a leading exponent of this new-old literature.

Through introspection and flashbacks, the volume depicts the disorientation and anguish of Emilia (Mica) Apostoae, an aging woman whose longing for the childhood and youth she spent under the communist regime make her block out negative memories of the period.

Her ideal, Ursa notes, is actually that of an "anti-world", where negative values are made to look positive: "work before the lunch break, so that one could slack off afterward [...], 'creative' solutions for increasing productivity, generalized theft ('there was enough to steal from'), painting fir trees green when a visit by Ceaușescu was due, the presence of a good-natured man who traded in political jokes (the assigned informer, as it would turn out).

"[6] Tovarășe de drum, the oral history collection coordinated by Lungu and his colleague Radu Pavel Gheo in 2008, groups together the testimonies of 17 intellectual women with various social backgrounds, all of whom reflect back on totalitarian pressures.

[29][31] Among the diverse accounts in Tovarășe de drum, Burța-Cernat singles out those of Babeți, who recalls the importance tote bags had for her family during two decades of communism, and Bittel, who speaks about the ideal female cook, as "the queen of sarmale".

[29] In reference to the entire text, and in particular accounts of the ban on abortion, he argues: "all [its] female authors fundamentally speak about the same thing: the torment of being a woman, between the frustration of having one's intimacy forbidden and the efforts of illicit femininity.

"[29] Babeți's account was also viewed with interest by journalist Florentina Ciuverca, who also drew attention to Ruști's story about how, despite the official campaign against abortion, a doctor preemptively subjected her to curettage over a case of vaginal bleeding.

[31] Written during Lungu's stay at the Villa Mont Noir,[6] Cum să uiți o femeie is the story of Andi, an investigative journalist employed by a seedy newspaper, covering the period after his lover Marga decides to leave him unannounced.

[9] According to Marius Chivu, the relationship between Set and Andi is "the novel's consistent part" and a "tour de force", owing to "the natural manner and the authenticity with which [Lungu] recomposes the missionary and religious message.

"[6] He added having felt "a vague and persistent fear that there were mistakes to be made with each step [of the writing process]", explaining: "This being a setting relatively unknown to me, it was easily conceivable that I could have missed or inadequately placed significant details.