Ion Druță was born on 3 September 1928 in the village of Horodiște in what was then Soroca County in the Kingdom of Romania (now in Dondușeni District, Republic of Moldova).

He graduated from the Forestry School and the Higher Courses of the Institute of Literature "Maxim Gorki" of the Union of Soviet Writers.

His works are considered to be part of the "gold fund" of contemporary national literature.

Druță was one of the leaders of the Romanian national movement in Moldova in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

However, from the 1990s, his position in the ethno-linguistic controversy became more ambiguous and Moldovenist,[3][4] being both criticised by the pro-Romanian media and organizations and praised by the pro-Russian ones for this stance.