Ion Luca Caragiale

Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachianborn Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist. Leaving behind an important cultural legacy, he is considered one of the greatest playwrights in Romanian language and literature, as well as one of its most important writers and a leading representative of local humor. Alongside Mihai Eminescu, Ioan Slavici and Ion Creang, he is seen as one of the main representatives of Junimea, an influential literary society with which he nonetheless parted during the second half of his life. His work, spanning four decades, covers the ground between Neoclassicism, Realism, and Naturalism, building on an original synthesis of foreign and local influences.

Ion Luca Caragiale was born into a family of Greek descent, whose members first arrived in Wallachia soon after 1812, during the rule of Prince Ioan Gheorghe Carageatefan Caragiali, as his grandfather was known locally, worked as a cook for the court in Bucharest. Ion Lucas father, who reportedly originated from the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, settled in Prahova County as the curator of the Mrgineni Monastery . Known to locals as Luca Caragiali, he later built a reputation as a lawyer and judge in Ploieti, and married Ecaterina, the daughter of a merchant from the Transylvanian town of Braov. Her maiden name was given as Alexovici or as Karaboa . She is known to have been Greek herself, and, according to historian Lucian Nastas, some of her relatives were Hungarian members of the Tabay family. The Caragiali couple also had a daughter, named Lenci.

Source: Wikipedia