Eugène Ionesco

Ionesco’s metaphysical farces made him a leading protagonist of the Theatre of the Absurd. He met Cioran and Eliade at university in Bucharest, both becoming lifelong friends. He greatly admired Breton, who with Buñuel, Queneau and Adamov was an encouragingly supportive friend (although Adamov, once very close, found it hard to take Ionesco’s literary success). Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute and he performed a Virginia Woolf play in New York. He knew and corresponded with Beckett, threw his arms around Trocchi, met with the ‘Pataphysicians on Vian’s roof, visited the aged Brancusi, and got his childhood inspiration Tzara speaking Romanian again.