In the early 1930s, Sadoveanu was an aspiring playwright and thespian, working with Ion Sava and Costache Popa on the production of independent plays, and contributing a musical comedy of her own.

Profira's choice for a career in theater was actively discouraged by her father, who was instead fully supportive of her becoming a writing professional; he personally handled the manuscript of her first novel, in 1933, and had her publish reportage works in his Adevărul.

This second debut earned her critical attention, though her later efforts in the field were touched by allegations of immorality and plagiarism from Sadoveanu Sr. She spent much of World War II editing his works for print in a luxury edition—a project interrupted briefly by the fascist National Legionary State, during which the Sadoveanus and Popas went into hiding, fearing for their lives.

In parallel, Sadoveanu Jr had a steady output as a translator of Russian-, French- and English-language works, introducing the Romanian public to the novels of Peter Neagoe and William Saroyan.

He also personally designed Profira's childhood home, which included odaia națională ("the room of the nation"), with portraits of historical figures such as Stephen the Great, Michael the Brave, Vasile Lupu, and Alexandru Ioan Cuza.

[5] She was additionally schoolmates and best friends with the future mathematician Florica T. Câmpan, who recalls that she had pity for Profira, assuming that Mihail, as a professional writer, must have also been miserably poor.

[2] Profira's life was interrupted abruptly during the Romanian campaigns of World War I; she later confessed to her fear and indignation that Mihail was once forced to present himself for active duty.

[2] Mingling in with the literary circle formed around Viața Romînească, she was present when the family entertained there some of the major figures in interwar Romanian literature, and later also witnessed impromptu performances by singer Maria Tănase.

[14] Her writings, some of which contain minute records of her life with Sadoveanu Sr, report that she and her siblings often assisted her father with proofreading; she had by then "devour[ed] our huge parental library".

[12] During the early 1930s, she was involved with the underground art scene of Iași, helping Costache Popa and Expressionist painter Ion Sava with Teatrul de vedenii ("The Theater of Apparitions"); she had contributions on adapting stories from Rudyard Kipling ("The Mark of the Beast"), Edgar Allan Poe ("The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"), and E. T. A. Hoffmann ("The Choosing of a Bride").

The plot moved between Iași and America's major film studios, with local actors impersonating 1930s movie stars—from Greta Garbo to Adolphe Menjou and Charlie Chaplin.

[2] Still hoping to open up her own theater in collaboration with Sava and Clody Bertola, she focused part of her literary work on closet drama, noting in 1977 that she still found this to be a very pleasurable aspect of her career.

[14] As she herself recalled, she was shortlisted for the Femina Prize for women's literature, but snubbed by her own Poporanist aunt, Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan, who asked the jury to vote instead for the aged Elena Farago.

One of them, Pielea de șarpe ("The Snake Skin"), was rejected by Cartea Românească, who found its subject matter to be "immoral" (this also discouraged her from presenting its sequel, Volley Ball).

This adventure novel, set in the eponymous archipelago, is read by Burța-Cernat as anticipating the more successful Toate pînzele sus!, by Radu Tudoran, and also a "pale imitation" of classics such as The Mysterious Island.

[24] It was marginally inspired by the elder Sadoveanu: he had selected the story from articles in Le Tour du Monde; since he also made small contributions in exotic nature writing, Profira was accused of having plagiarized from him.

[5] Co-opted by that institution, Profira had memoirs published in the collective column Femeile între ele ("Women amongst Themselves"), managed by her aunt Izabela (and also featuring authors such as Ticu Archip, Lucia Demetrius, Coca Farago, Claudia Millian, and Sanda Movilă).

It was put out by the official publishing house, Editura Fundațiilor Regale (EFR), in a conscious effort to familiarize Romanians with the more unfamiliar aspects of British society (and also to provide the public with a higher standard of translation from English).

[10] The Sadoveanus' literary activity was threatened in late 1940 and early 1941, when the radically fascist Iron Guard controlled Romania as a "National Legionary State", physically destroying old-regime figures such as Nicolae Iorga.

[30] A diary entry by Mihail Sebastian records his meeting with Profira, who confessed that her father was considering membership in the Guard, noting that he was urged to do so by friends Ionel and Păstorel Teodoreanu.

"[32] As the National Legionary State gave way to Ion Antonescu's military regime, Profira was employed by Gorjanul publishing house, translating Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (announced for publication in December 1943).

[39] In collaboration with the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union, she issued versions of poems by Ivan Krylov, Mikhail Lermontov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolay Nekrasov, and Alexander Pushkin, which were not published, but rather recited publicly by children from Bucharest's Lyceum No 50 during a bilingual gala.

Immediately after the regime change, Profira edited a sixth volume of her father's works, this time curated by the new state enterprise, Editura de Stat pentru Literatură și Artă (ESPLA); the project was abruptly interrupted, for unknown causes, and only resumed from 1954.

[43] Alone or in collaboration, Profira also translated Anton Chekhov, Konstantin Ushinsky, Honoré de Balzac,[12] and Peter Neagoe; the latter contributions were described by critic Șerban Cioculescu as "excellent".

[29] Histriographer Marin Bucur praised the contribution: "Profira Sadoveanu's notes, which are featured in each volume, are always bringing up something new, or in any case very obscure, and some interesting details, providing the sort of material that a critical exegete or a literary historian will surely find useful.

[48] Among the final events of her father's life, Profira Sadoveanu witnessed and recounted the intellectual drive behind his 1954 novel, Cîntecul mioarei (purposefully conceived as a less "artificial" rendering of the Miorița myth, and in direct opposition to the version standardized by Alecsandri).

[2] Around then, she was approached by the scholar-novelist George Călinescu, who intended to write a massive and minutely detailed biography of Sadoveanu Sr, with humorous tinges, and wanted her as his co-author.

[46] Strongly influenced by her father's literary style, Profira Sadoveanu adopted his florid descriptions—as critic Mihai Zamfir notes, this was to the point of pastiche;[53] however, she infused her writing with a purely feminine sensibility.

[58] Later contributions include a teleplay version of Pogoară Iarna, produced and aired on Romanian Television in September 1982 (Dinu Cernescu was the director, and Gelu Nițu the star actor).

It was meant to cover biographical detail that Mihail had not been interested in discussing—one partly fictionalized story describes a literary hoax that her father had attempted in complicity with Topîrceanu and Garabet Ibrăileanu.