He lived most of his life in Costeștii din Vale village and was advertised as one of the rare and self-taught "peasant writers"; however, he held a variety of jobs, from notary to porter, and eventually to a wealthy landowner.

The latter passion blended with his work as an amateur scientist: having originally fabricated explosives in his home, he turned to fields such as aviation and agricultural mechanics and held several patents—including one for a quasi-helicopter; he was concerned about issues in environmental science, and proposed systems to harness wave power at a worldwide level.

[2][4] Iancu attended primary school in his native village from 1886 to 1891,[3] but resented the experience of formal education since it asked him to memorize things, in particular "ideas disseminated by the so-called savants.

He only decided to follow such advice after Constantin Dobrescu-Argeș and Alexandru Valescu, as editors of the rural magazine Gazeta Țăranilor, noted his talent but informed him that he still needed to "learn from books".

As noted by critic Ion Roman, in his series of poems, retaken by Gazeta Țăranilor between 1906 and February 1907, Vissarion "dared to prophesy, and in some ways even stoke", these revolutionary events.

[13] He also expressed this radicalism in a poem he sent to the mainstream daily Universul, which was read by the authorities;[9] Vissarion himself believes that he was detested for his pieces in Hazul Satelor, which, though pseudonymous, were easily attributable to him.

Depicting the botched execution of two peasant leaders (and making a statement about the brutality of repression), it was part of a planned, but never completed, novel called Răsculații ("The Rebels");[13] overall, it had the "authenticity of a procès-verbal".

[16] Aligned with socialism during that stage of his life and possibly witnessing speeches by left-wing agitators at Sotir, Vissarion also published another work, the sketch story Fără pâine ("No Bread"), in a 1912 issue of the same paper.

Theatrical historian Ionuț Niculescu criticizes the contribution for its "linear action", but praises it for being "somber and authentic", in contrast to "idylls" by Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești and I. I.

[13][17] Ion Pas, who edited România Muncitoare alongside Panait Istrati, was enthusiastic about the Vissarion contributions, calling them "convincing documents regarding the sufferings of peasant slaves".

[3][14] In the meantime, Vissarion managed to penetrate Bucharest's literary life, attracting attention from writers and critics who were seeking authentic peasant voices and who viewed him as an "exceptional 'peasant raconteur'";[6] according to Pas, this was after Brătescu-Voinești had read his memoir of an encounter with Delavrancea in România Muncitoare, and chanced upon the author while waiting for his train in Costeștii din Vale.

[22] Critic Ovidiu Papadima argues that the socialist episode "brought a diminishing of his raconteur's talent", pushing Vissarion to attempt an adaptation to modern forms of writing.

"[24] Nevestele..., which elaborates on the topic of free love, was much liked by more cultured authors of the day, including Brătescu-Voinești and Gala Galaction, but disliked by Papadima, who found it "sugary, when not entirely vulgar".

Papadima contrasts this narrative with another one of Vissarion's stories, Șperaclul ("The Master Key")—a sample of his "impressive writing", detailing the ethical conundrums faced by a regular soldier in his attempts to respect his captain's whims.

[6] Upon its publication, Privighetoarea neagră was welcomed by columnist Spiru Hasnaș as a sample of literature by "the most spontaneous, most primitive voice of folk inspiration [...], even when his writing produces pages of much roughness or prolix sketches.

[36] Writing in October 1919, Galaction declared Vissarion as the "strong peasant artist" Romanians had been looking for—a verdict described as highly exaggerated by literary scholar Șerban Cioculescu.

Set in 1839 Wallachia, it intertwined a romance novel (concluding that men are naturally polygamous) into a historical narrative with appearances by Hajduk Radu Anghel[38] and court poet Iancu Văcărescu.

[37] Ethnographer Pompiliu Pîrvescu gave the work a mixed review—he disliked the "deluge of gibberish" in parts of the novel, and criticized Vissarion for making his characters speak "like today's lawyers."

[14] While Cântecele lui Iancu, comprising erotic verse, was panned by reviewers as "prosaic and tasteless",[41] a prose work, titled Corvin, won Vissarion the Writers' Society award for 1929.

In 1929, he produced Lumea cealaltă ("The Netherworld"), followed in 1935 by Învietorul de morți ("Raiser of the Dead")—the latter was published as part of a special peasants' collection by the Royal Foundations,[9][48][49] with prints by Aurel Jiquidi.

Reviewing the volume for Adevărul, Doctor Ygrec suggested that its actual worth was in unwittingly mapping out the "entire subconscious side of Romanian peasant spirituality", for whom "the fantastic characters appearing in dreams provide urges, give commands, and furnish advice that everyone then follows.

[5] Literary historian Ștefan Ion Ghilimescu notes that the "naughty peasant writer" was, in fact, an important landowner and gamekeeper, with estates covering parts of Costeștii din Vale, Zăvoiu Orbului, and Puțu cu Salcie.

By the end of 1939, he was engaged in furious correspondence with his publishers at Cartea Românească, accusing them of having hidden the best-selling status of his novels and taking steps to reduce his profit margin.

[61] Vissarion published a new science fantasy work in 1939, as Agerul Pământului ("Earth's Agility")—noted for combining the "traditional conflicts of folk fairy tales" into a futuristic setting.

[62] Amid World War II, Vissarion's diaries continued to focus on the antiquity of the Romanian people and its future of prosperity; they also lash out at his contemporaries for having "reduced [him] to nothing", and explain that though once tempted by politics, he had always detested politicians for "living the good life at the masses' expense.

[5] In 1957, while recommending that Lupii be reread, Roman noted: "His writing is a mixture of frowning and humor, of enlightened thought and naivete, of trust in one's intellectual prowess and scandalous mystical kowtowing in front of existential mysteries.

"[5] Writing in 1962, a critic Valeriu Râpeanu asked editors to reconsider their priorities, noting that a "rather meek" Vissarion had been "persistently" republished; in contrast, more important figures were still waiting for the same treatment.

[33] Iancu Vissarion's unpublished works include, in addition to Un vis ciudat, a "vast novel" of autofictional notations, called Cartea omului neînțeles ("The Book of a Misunderstood Man"), a large body of novellas, collectively known as Nina, a dramatization of Ber-Căciulă, as well as some fairy tales and a corpus of recollections from his life as a writer.

[9] In 1963, author Mihu Dragomir discussed the need of reprinting Vissarion's contribution to Romanian science fiction, alongside similar works by Felix Aderca, Alexandru Macedonski, Cezar Petrescu, and Henri Stahl.

[6] In 1982, after decades of working as a clerk, his daughter Cornelia escaped to West Germany, and found employment at Radio Free Europe; she debuted as a poet in 1986, thereafter acquiring fame as the author of anti-communist essays, in which she inserted recollections about her father and peasant life in general.