Camil Petrescu

Camil Petrescu (Bucharest, 1894 – Bucharest, 1957) was one of Romania's most important novelists, and also a playwright and poet. Trained in philosophy, with a doctoral thesis on Husserl's phenomenology, he is regarded as the writer who closed the era of the traditional novel in his country and laid the groundwork for the modern one.

He lost his parents early and was raised by relatives or a nanny, though the sources are unclear on this point. After school in Bucharest, he began philosophy studies late in life and worked as a teacher in Timișoara. He fought in the First World War, was wounded and taken prisoner by the Austro-Hungarians. His front-line experience inspired his first novel, Last Night of Love, First Night of War (1930), which used innovative narrative techniques and was a major success. His admiration for Proust, to whom he later devoted an essay, is visible in that work.

In 1933 he published The Bed of Procrustes, whose more complex structure confirmed his reputation. He directed the National Theatre in Bucharest and was elected to the Romanian Academy. His early sympathy for the Axis and his later embrace of the communist regime remain controversial. He left unfinished a novel about Nicolae Bălcescu. His influence endures as a reference point for modern Romanian fiction.