Biography
Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994)
Eugene Ionescu was born on Nov 26, 1909 in Slatina, Romania. He was the second child to Eugene and Mari-Therese Ionescu. His father was a lawyer and worked for the government and his mother was a French schoolteacher. There is conflicting information about Ionesco’s birthyear stemming from Ionesco’s own rumor that he was born in 1912 to coincide with the death of Romanian Playwright Caragiale, whom he idolized. A year after Ionesco was born, his father moved the family to France to complete his Juris Doctor degree, returning to Romania in 1916 to fight in World War I. His mother stayed behind to take care of the children in France. His father then divorced his mother while she stayed behind. Once she was no longer able to take care of the children on her own, Marie-Therese moved the family back to Romania where their father took custody. Ionesco stayed for several years. He recalls this time being full of disagreements with his tyrannical father. The difficulty in his relationship with his father and the constant oppression he felt, as well as the way his father treated and abandoned his mother, was the driving force that led him to abandon Romania, his father’s homeland and embrace his mother’s homeland, France.
At age 17 he left his father’s home and started living with his aunt where he studied literature and French at the University of Bucharest where he became known for his “public literacy debates.” His first published work was a collection of poetry in 1931. Ionesco’s first volume of essays, entitled, Nu published in 1935, attacked famous Romanian writers of the time.
After university, Ionesco worked as a schoolteacher in Bucharest. He Married in 1936. In 1938, he received a grant from the Intsitut Francais of Bucharest to write a dissertation, in Paris, on the theme of death in Baudelaire’s poetry which he never completed. He returned home to Romania in 1940. Then, in 1942 he received a diplomatic appointment in France and left Romania, never to return.
When in France he wrote about Romanian culture and did some translations. He published articles in a French publication specifically about Romanian life called Viata Romaneasca. In 1944 he and his wife Rodica welcomed their daughter Marie-France into the world. She went on to be a professor as well as writer and translator like her father. She penned a biography about her father called Portretul scriitorului in secol: Eugene Ionesco, 1909-1994 translated, the Writer’s Protrait in His Century: Eugene Ionesco, 1909-1994, first published in Bucharest, and later, translated and published in France.
When the Antonesccu government fell, Romania became allies with Russia and united against Germany in 1945. Ionesco wrote a sarcastic criticism of Romanian upper class, military and even the church that caused such an uproar that he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to prison for 11 years. After the war he lost his job as cultural attaché at the Romanian consulate and took on odd jobs like translating, working in a warehouse and proofreading.
In 1949 he translated a play into French he had previously written in Romanian called (Englezeste fara professor) English Without a Professor. This went on to become the Bald Soprano which was inspired by Ionesco’s attempt to learn English using the Assimil Method. He was struck by the absurdity of English as he listened to the repetitive exercises as part of the Assimil Method.
Language is also a theme in his play The Lesson. The story takes place during an actual lesson with a professor and student. As the lesson progresses, the professor becomes more and more aggravated until he ultimately stabs his pupil to death, ironically while discussing the word, knife. The play is also circular is structure as another pupil arrives at the end of the play for the cycle to repeat.
Multiplying objects are a recurring theme in The Chairs (1952), Victims of Duty (1953), The New Tenant (1957) and Rhinoceros (1959), his most famous play in the English-speaking world. The play includes people turning into Rhinos until there is only one character left, Ionesco’s semi-autobiographical character Berenger, demonstrating the dangers of totalitarianism, inspired by one of Ionesco’s friends who joined the Nazi party. Berenger also appears in The Killer (1958), Exit the King (1962), and A Stroll in the Air (1963).
Ionesco continued to write 28 plays, several volumes of essays, and a novel which was made into a film La Vase, starring Ionesco himself in 1972. He created some illustrations for his works and spent the last 10 years of his life painting and exhibiting his work. He received many awards during his lifetime, most significant was his election to the Académie Francaise in 1970. He passed away at age 84 in 1994 on 28th of March and he is buried in Paris, France