57 amazing facts about the writer Eugene Ionesco!

Eugene Ionesco was a famous writer who really inspired a whole new generation of writers.

Eugene Ionesco is a famous writer whose cultural legacy is quite big. Let’s find out more about him

1. Eugene Ionesco was born in Slatina, Romania.
2. He was born on the 26th of November in 1909.
3. He was French-Romanian.
4. His mother was French and his father Romanian.
5. His mother was Protestant and his father Orthodox.
6. Eugène himself was baptized into the Orthodox Christian church as well.
7. Many sources cite his birthdate as 1912.
8. Some sources claim that this error is due to vanity on the part of Ionesco himself, who wanted the year of his birth to coincide with that when his idol, Romanian playwright Caragiale, died.
9. Other sources claim that he “invented” this lie because he wanted to be younger when he entered the world of theater.
10. In 1912 he moved to Paris with his mother though.
11. He spent most of his childhood in France.
12. In France, he had an experience he claimed affected his perception of the world more significantly than any other.
13. He returned to Romania with his father and mother in 1925 after his parents divorced.
14. He was a famous playwright.
15. He pioneered in the Theater of absurd.
16. Ionesco’s plays depict the solitude and insignificance of human existence in a tangible way.
17. There he attended Saint Sava National College.
18. Then he studied French Literature at the University of Bucharest.
19. He attended classes at the University of Bucharest from 1928 to 1933 and qualified as a teacher of French.
20. While there he met Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, and the three became lifelong friends.
21. In 1936 Ionesco married Rodica Burileanu.
22. Together they had one daughter.
23. He wrote for his daughter a number of unconventional children’s stories.
24. With his family, he returned to France in 1938 for him to complete his doctoral thesis.
25. Caught by the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he returned to Romania.
26. Soon changed his mind and, with the help of friends, obtained travel documents which allowed him to return to France in 1942.
27. He remained in France during the rest of the war, living in Marseilles before moving with his family to Paris after its liberation.
28. Most of his work is written in french.
29. He started by writing poetry and criticism.
30. His work was publishing in several Romanian journals.
31. One of his first criticisms was named The grotesque and tragic life of Victor Hugo.
32. It was a satirical biography mocking Victor Hugo’s status as a great figure in French literature.
33. Eugene Ionesco started his theater career late: in 1948.
34. His first play was The Bald Soprano.
35. It was performed for the first time in 1950.
36.  At the age of 40, he decided to learn English.
37. He did that by using the Assimil method.
38. He conscientiously copying whole sentences in order to memorize them.
39. Re-reading them, he began to feel that he was not learning English.
40. Ionesco’s earliest theatrical works, considered to be his most innovative.
41. They were one-act plays or extended sketches.
42. Some of them are The Bald Soprano, The Lesson and The Chairs.
43. Ionesco contributed to the theatre with his theoretical writings.
44. Ionesco is often considered a writer of the Theatre of the Absurd and one of his most significant representatives.
45. This label was originally given to him by Martin Esslin in his book of the same name.
46. Esslin, placed Ionesco alongside contemporaries Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov.
47. He was calling this informal group “absurd” on the basis of Albert Camus’ concept of the absurd.
48. According to Esslin, Ionesco captured the meaninglessness of existence in his plays.
49. Ionesco was made a member of the French Academy in 1970.
50. He also received numerous awards including Tours Festival Prize in 1959.
51. He also received the Society of Authors Theatre Prize in 1966and Grand Prix National for theatre in 1969.
52. He also received honorary Doctoral Degrees from New York University and the Universities of Leuven, Warwick, and Tel Aviv.
53. In 1964 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
54. Sartre who is also considered a writer of the absurd received the Nobel Prize.
55. Eugène Ionesco died on 28 March in 1994.
56. He was 84 years old.
57. He is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.