Emile Michel Cioran

Emil Mihai Cioran was born on April 8, 1911, in Rășinari, Romania (then part of Austria-Hungary) and studied philosophy at the University of Bucharest. At a very young age, he discovered Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Schopenhauer, Flaubert, Lichtenberg, Balzac, Tagore, and Spengler, who influenced his thinking, as did Hegel, Husserl, Kant, Weininger, Fichte, and Kierkegaard later on. In 1937, having already written four essays in his native language, he was sent to Paris on a scholarship from the French Institute of Bucharest, where he remained until the end of his life. His first work published in French was "A Short History of Decay" in 1949, followed by numerous studies and essays. He passed away on June 20, 1995.