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Eugene Ionesco

Eugène Ionesco was born in Slatina, Rumania, in 1912, of a Romanian father and a French mother. He spent much of his childhood in Paris. He went back to Rumania in 1925 where he completed his schooling and studied at the University of Bucharest. He married in 1936 and returned to France two years later. He published poetry and criticism, but did not start writing plays until 1948 when he began to learn English. The phrases contained in an English manual inspired in him a vision of an 'absurd' world, although his first play, La Cantatrice chauve, was coldly received. He defined his understanding of the term 'absurd' as 'that which is devoid of purpose ... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.'

La Cantatrice chauve, performed in 1950, was followed by a series of one act plays (including La Leçon and Les Chaises) and in 1953 by his first full-length play, Amédée, ou comment s'en d'ébarrasser. His other plays include Tuer sans gages (1957), Rhinocéros (1959), Le piéton de l'air (1962), Le Roi se meurt (1962), which all feature the character Berenger, La Soif et la faim (1965), Jeux de massacre (1970), Macbett (1972), Ce Formidable bordel (1973), Homme aux valises (1975) Noir et blanc (1980) and Journeys Among the Dead (1986). Martin Esslin once described Ionesco as 'a serious artist dedicated to the arduous exploration of the realities of the human situation, fully aware of the task that he has undertaken, and equipped with formidable intellectual power'. Ionesco won several major international awards and is acknowledged as one of the most important figures in the history of avant-garde theatre. He died in March 1994.