Mihail Sebastian

Mihail Sebastian was born in Brăila (Romania) in 1907. His real name was Iosif Hechter. He wrote numerous theatre plays, an extensive diary and several novels. He wrote his first texts while he was still studying. Later, her worked as a lawyer and writes until he had to give away his career because of his Jewish origin. He was a close friend of writers such as Ionesco, Eliade and Cioran but unlike them, he only received international acclaim posthumously after his diaries from 1935-1944 had been published. His autobiographical novel For Two Thousand Years (1934) was attacked from the left and right. His response was the book Cum am devenit huligan (How I Became a Hooligan, 1935). Mihail Sebastian survived the holocaust and became professor for literature at the University of Bucharest in 1945. On his way to the first lecture he was hit by a truck. He died at the scene of the accident.