Life[edit]

Camil Petrescu lost both his parents early in life and was raised by a relative
(or a nanny from the Mosilor suburb; the sources remain quite unclear on this).
Petrescu went to primary school at Obor, and to high school at Saint Sava Nation
al College, where he wrote his very first poem. Being very poor, he studied assi
duously, worked to support himself, and relatively lateat the age of 29he began hi
s studies in philosophy at the University of Bucharest. His antisemitism is cont
roversial, having Jewish friends such as Mihail Sebastian .[1][2][3]
In 1916, Petrescu was drafted and sent to the battlefields of then raging World
War I, where he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Austro-Hungarians. Freed i
n 1918, he depicted his war experiences in his 1930 novel Ultima noapte de drago
ste, ntia noapte de razboi ("The Last Night of Love, the First Night of War"). In
1933, Petrescu wrote the novel Patul lui Procust ("Procrustes's Bed"). He was a
teacher in Timisoara, and director of the National Theater Bucharest. He was als
o a member of the Romanian Academy from 1947.