Emil Cioran

Joseph Acquisto (University of Vermont)

Ed. by Cristina Sandru, The Literary Encyclopedia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.8.4: Romanian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Maria Sabina Draga Alexandru (University of Bucharest), Calin Andrei Mihailescu (University of Western Ontario)

Dates

Born 8 Apr 1911
Died 20 Jun 1995
Activity 1934-1995

Places

Born in Transylvania
Active in France; Romania

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Philosopher

Resources

Cioran's Works

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E. M. Cioran was a Romanian-born essayist and aphorist living in Paris and writing in French from the age of twenty-six. Upon the publication of his first book in French,

Précis de decomposition

(

A Short History of Decay

), Cioran was hailed by Maurice Nadeau in

Combat

as “le prophète des temps concentrationaires et du suicide collectif [. . .] le porteur [. . .] de la mauvaise nouvelle” [“the prophet of the era of concentration camps and collective suicide [. . .] the bringer of [. . .] bad news”]. While his writings are suffused with philosophical themes, Cioran often resisted the label of philosopher, preferring an unsystematic and fragmentary approach to forging his thinking through writing. Thus his works proceed more by juxtaposition than by systematic argumentation, and…

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2281 words

Citation: Acquisto, Joseph. "Emil Cioran". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12517, accessed 24 November 2024.]