What Eugène Ionesco has to say today

Here we are today, exactly in the situation denounced by the author of La Cantatrice chauve, Rhinocéros and Le Roi se meurt, as a melancholy visionary. Ionesco the scoffer, Ionesco the best. A look back at the 20th-century man who understood everything.

The totalitarianisms of the 20th century, led by Communism and Nazism, have given rise to golden reflections from a number of thinkers. Among the most brilliant and courageous were Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, George Orwell and Eugène Ionesco. The latter, a French author of Romanian origin, left his mark on literary history with his conception of a new theater, the theater of the absurd, also known as anti-theatre, avant-garde theater and theater of derision. When a movement has so many names, it's often a good sign.