Ion Luca Caragiale

Portrait of Caragiale on the 1,000,000 lei note.

Ion Luca Caragiale (January 30, 1852 - July 9, 1912) was a Romanian playwright, novelist, and short story writer.

He was born in Haimanale, which was part of Wallachia but is now I. L. Caragiale in Prahova.

Caragiale began his career as a writer by publishing a series of poems in the magazine Ghimpele ("The Thorn"). He became one of the leading members of the most important literary movement of his time, Junimea , movement which launched great names of Romanian literature, such as Ion Creangă and Mihai Eminescu.

His plays are characterised by a classical construction and a very acute observation of the social realities of the time, always mixed with a fine sense of irony.

His most influential works are :

• O noapte furtunoasă ("A Stormy Night")
• O scrisoare pierdută ("A Lost Letter")
• Conu Leonida faţă cu reacţiunea
• Năpasta ("The Calamity")
• D-ale carnavalului ("Of The Carnival")

In 1906, Caragiale moved with his family to Berlin. He frequently visited Romania and contributed to Romanian periodicals. For his 60th birthday in 1912 friends in Romania wished to organise a jubilee, but he refused. In the spring of the same year he had the pleasure of seeing a series of remarkable poems by Mateiu Caragiale (his illegitimate son, with whom his relationship was often tense) published in Viaţa Romanească.

Ion Luca Caragiale died on June 9, 1912 of arteriosclerosis.

Caragiale is portrayed on the 1,000,000 lei note issued in December 2003.

Reference

• Eric D. Tappe. Ion Luca Caragiale. Twayne Publishers Inc., NY, 1974. (ISBN 0805721991)

External links

• Ion Luca Caragiale - official website (Romanian)
• Ion Luca Caragiale (Romanian)
• Ion Luca Caragiale Virtual Encyclopedia - multimedia CD from the Noesis Cultural Society