Ileana Mălăncioiu

Mălăncioiu was born in 1940 in the village of Godeni, in the commune of the same name.[2][3][4][5] Of her birth, she later said, "I was the second daughter born to my parents, and I was not received with much joy. They had expected a boy."[4]

After graduating from the High School for Girls in Câmpulung in 1957,[6] she originally trained as an accountant,[3] then studied at the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy. She graduated in 1968 with a thesis on Lucian Blaga, then went on to obtain a doctor of philosophy from the university in 1977, writing her doctoral thesis on "Tragic Guilt (Greek Tragedies, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Kafka)."[2][4][5]

Mălăncioiu began writing poetry, with her first published verse appearing in the magazine Luceafărul in 1965.[5] She went on to publish over a dozen volumes of poetry, starting with Pasărea tăiată in 1967, and notably including Ardere de tot, Urcarea muntelui, Skärseldsberget, and the anthology Linia vieții.[2][3] She is considered one of Romania's most important poets of the 1960s and '70s.[2] Her work often centers on the trauma of history, while incorporating elements of Romanian rural life, folklore, religion, and literature.[3] Mălăncioiu's poetry has been translated into English, including in the collections After the Raising of Lazarus (2005) and The Legend of the Walled-Up Wife (2012), both translated by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.[7]

In 1980, she became the editor of the magazine Viața Românească, where she published such authors as Constantin Noica and Gabriel Liiceanu, among other members of the Păltiniș school.[4] Before 1989 and the Romanian Revolution, she also worked for the public TV station Televiziunea Română, the magazine Argeș, and the animation studio Animafilm.[4] She faced censorship throughout the communist period, resigning from Viața Românească on March 31, 1988, due to tightening censorship, including of Noica's writing.[4] Her 1985 poetry collection Urcarea muntelui ("The Climbing of the Mountain") was republished in 1992 to reincorporate censored material.[3][4][8] She is well known for her post-1989 political commentary, forceful in her criticism of both Romanian's former leaders and those who succeeded them.[2][3]

After 1989, she worked for the sociopolitical weekly Revista 22, as chief editor of the publishing house Litera, and for the literary magazine România Literară.[4] She was awarded the Order of the Star of Romania, Commander rank, in 2000, for her artistic output and for her efforts to promote Romanian culture.[9] In 2013, she was named as a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy.[2][5]