Born Nov. 26, 1912, in Slatina, Rumania. French playwright. One of the founders of the modern theater of the absurd. Member of the French Academy (1970). Rumanian by origin. Resident of France since 1938.

In his early grotesque farces and allegories that parodied the alogism of language clichés and the automatism of stereotyped philistine thinking, Ionesco turned typical everyday situations inside out and gave them a buffoon-like incongruous cast (The Bald Soprano, staged 1950, published 1953; The Chairs, staged 1952, published 1954; and Amédéé, or How to Get Rid of It, staged and published 1954).

In his later parable plays, Ionesco tried to switch from criticism of insipid language and conformist consciousness to criticism of bureaucratic totalitarianism and fascist degradation of the bourgeois philistine. However, the social evil with which the individualist-loner clashed acquired a metaphysical aspect in Ionesco’s works (The Killer, staged and published 1958; Rhinoceros, published 1959; and A Stroll in the Air, staged and published 1963, Russian translation 1967). Exit the King (published 1963) interwove tragic variations of death motifs with a satire on dictatorship in general.

In later plays, the reality that formerly had been satirized was replaced by capricious phantasmagoria. Ionesco’s confusion and gloom deepened, reducing the playwright to a reiteration of decadent themes (Thirst and Hunger, staged and published 1966, and Macbett, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, 1972). His publicistic works became limited to bitter carping on the way the world is organized and to hysterical attacks against the socialist camp.