Adrian Maniu

All five children displayed marked intellectual and artistic leanings, while two devoted their careers to the arts: Adrian and his sister Rodica, a well-known painter during the interwar period.

He read extensively but not systematically, which drew him to Charles Baudelaire, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and Aloysius Bertrand (whom he also translated), but he quickly moved beyond his Symbolist phase toward modernism.

Together with his new friends Lucian Blaga, Cezar Petrescu, and Gib Mihăescu, he helped found Gândirea magazine, where he published Războiul poem cycle and part of the verses that would appear in the 1924 summary volume Lângă pământ.

Through 1930, he was heavily involved in the theatre: he adapted Carlo Gozzi's version of "Puss in Boots"; wrote Meșterul (1922), Rodia de aur (with Păstorel Teodoreanu, 1923), Dinu Păturică (with Ion Pillat an adaptation of Nicolae Filimon's Ciocoii vechi și noi, 1924), Tinerețe fără bătrânețe (1925) and Lupii de aramă (successfully played by Maria Ventura, directed by Victor Ion Popa and with music by Sabin Drăgoi, 1929); and was a director at the National Theatre Craiova (1926–1927).

He was inspector general in the Arts Ministry (1928-1946), director of the spoken program for Romanian Radio (1930–1933), and literary adviser at Fundația Regală pentru Literatură și Artă from 1932.

After 1946 and with the rise of the Romanian Communist Party, he underwent a difficult period, living off an excruciating work of translation (among which, Basme de Pușkin, 1953; Balade populare ruse, 1954; Cântecul Niebelungilor, 1958) while wracked by illness.

[3] In 1965, in a slightly more relaxed political environment, he was able to publish two books, Cântece tăcute and Versuri în proză, a pair of not always inspired reworkings of older texts.