Born in Zimnicea, Teleorman County, he went to high school in Ploiești, after which he studied fine arts, first in Cluj and later in Bucharest, without graduating.

A leftist in his youth (he joined the Union of Communist Youth in 1933),[1] he wrote for many leftist papers and magazines of those days: "Cuvîntul liber", "Azi", "Facla", "Viața românească", "Era nouă", "Lumea românească", "Timpul", "Ecoul", "România Liberă", "Scînteia", sometimes under a pen name, among them Emil Soare and Paul Scorțeanu.

[1] Being on friendly terms with many communist leaders from their days in the underground, including Miron Constantinescu, Constanța Crăciun, Iosif Chișinevschi, Leonte Răutu, he was considered "invulnerable", and got away with criticizing the regime, mostly in private, when anybody else would have ended in prison for the same offence.

[2] Although he hoped, due to his antifascist past, to be given important government positions like his former comrades, he never got any, being sent instead to work for several magazines and papers.

[6] He transformed it into a meeting place for a number of young avant-garde writers who had difficulty getting published by the established literary press.