Ștefan Augustin Doinaș

Who was Ștefan Augustin Doinaș?

Ştefan Augustin Doinaş was a Romanian Neoclassical poet of the Communist era.

After completing high school in Arad, he studied philology in Sibiu, where the University of Cluj had moved in the wake of the Hungarian occupation of Northern Transylvania. Here he joined the Sibiu Literary Circle, a group formed around Lucian Blaga.

Doinaş published his first volume of poems, Cartea mareelor, in 1964. Some of his most famous works include: Omul cu compasul, Seminţia lui Laokoon, Anotimpul discret, Interiorul unui poem, and Lamentaţii. In 1992, he became a member of the Romanian Academy, and in 2002, honorary president of the Writers' Union of Romania.

Doinaş died of throat cancer. That night, his wife Silvia Lia Popa, a former first ballerina whom he had married in 1958, committed suicide.