Sîrbu was born in Petrila, Hunedoara County; his father was a coal miner from around Brad, while his mother had come from Bohemia to settle in Banat.

[3] In 1939, he enrolled in the courses of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at the University of Cluj, where the philosopher and writer Lucian Blaga became his teacher and mentor.

During World War II, he was conscripted and sent to the Eastern Front (1941–1944); he served as an artillery sergeant, reaching Stalingrad, where he was taken prisoner by the Soviets, yet managed to escape.

In 1947, he defended his doctoral thesis on "The epistemological function of metaphor" and became the youngest university lecturer in the country at the Conservatory of Theater Art in Cluj.

Although released, his nightmare will last all his life, being followed non-stop by the Securitate; his colleagues and friends were forced to denounce him, his house in Craiova was surrounded by microphones, and, "because leper is written on my door," he felt completely marginalized.

[6] He served as model for Victor Petrini, the hero of Marin Preda's novel, Cel mai iubit dintre pământeni.

[5][7] In 1989, he finalized his memoirs, Jurnalul unui jurnalist fără jurnal ("Diary of a journalist without a journal"), on which he had been working for five years.