Eugene Ionesco (Ionesco) was born in Slatina, Romania, on November 26, 1909, the son of a municipal official and a French mother working as a civil engineer for a Romanian railway company, Ionesco's early childhood was spent in Paris, where in 1912 his father took the family when he began studying law. A quarrelsome, choleric man, Ionesco's father treated his wife badly, leading to her attempted suicide and to Ionesco's life-long distaste for brutal authority figures.

In 1916, when Germany declared war on Romania, Ionesco's father left to return to Bucharest. He lost contact with the family. Without support, Ionesco's mother had to take a factory job, leaving her son to spend lonely months in a cheerless children's home near Paris. However, in 1922, at age thirteen, Ionesco had to return to Romania. His father had secretly divorced his mother, remarried, and gained legal custody of Eugene and Marilina, Ionesco's younger...