Eugène Ionesco

In 1909, Eugen Ionescu was born in Slatina, Romania to a lawyer, Eugen Ionescu Sr. and a French lady by the name of Therese Zicard. In 1913 they moved to France, but in 1924 when his parents divorced, he returned with his father to Romania. He studied in Craiova and in 1929 he attended the University of Bucharest to study Literature and Philosophy. In 1938 he moved back to Paris so that he could finish his doctorate thesis. Only in the 1950s did he find his new literary identity, when Eugene Ionesco (as the French spell it) became founder of the avant-garde 'theatre of the absurd'. His most popular plays are "the Bald Soprano", "the Lesson", "the Chairs", "The Killer", and "Rhinoceros". Eugene Ionesco later died in 1994 and was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.