1915—2001

Romanian surrealist poet and translator Gellu Naum was born in Bucharest in 1915, the son of Romantic poet Andrei Naum, who died in World War I. Early in his career, the younger Naum studied at the University of Bucharest and earned his PhD in philosophy at the Sorbonne, University of Paris. Naum collaborated with many painters, such as Victor Brauner, and founded a group of surrealists in Bucharest before being drafted into the Romanian Army during World War II.

Following his discharge from the military in 1944 because of illness, Naum continued writing and published more than two dozen books of poetry and prose. He is now considered one of the major figures in Romanian surrealism and during his lifetime translated many works into Romanian, including those of Samuel Beckett, Victor Hugo, and Franz Kafka.

Naum published his best-known work, the novel Zenobia, in 1985. He was named a scholar of the University of Berlin in 1995. He died in 2001.