[2] Although Cotruș' first published work had appeared in 1943, in the Arad Societatea de mâine magazine, he considered his real debut to have taken place in 1945.
This involved poems and reviews published under the pen name Ovidiu Sabin in Revista Cercului Literar din Sibiu, the Circle's publication.
[1] The communist regime carried out repression against members of this group; Cotruș became a wanted man who for a time managed to hide with acquaintances in various isolated villages, aided by false documents procured with the help of his future wife, Delia Giurgiu.
He took part in several cultural events in Yugoslavia, Spain, Canada, and France; in the latter country, he attended a ten-day festival in 1969 at the Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle, dedicated to Georges Bernanos.
During his last years, he spent time preparing an anthology and collection of interviews with André Malraux, Jean Grosjean, Pierre Emmanuel, Georges Poulet, Jacques Madaule [fr], Eugenio Coșeriu, László Gáldi [hu], and Carlo Tagliavini [it].