N. Crevedia

N. Crevedia (born Nicolae Ion Cârstea; November 24, 1902 – November 5, 1978) was a Romanian poet and prose writer.

Born in Crevedia Mare, Giurgiu County, his parents were the peasants Ion Cârstea and his wife Floarea (née Antonescu). His high school education was interrupted by World War I, during which he was mobilized as a telephone operator at the mayor's office in his native village. In 1923-1924, he was a clerk at the War Ministry. He graduated from Bucharest's Saint Sava High School in 1925, and then pursued a degree in Slavic studies at the University of Bucharest. He belonged to the sociological research teams led by Dimitrie Gusti. After brief periods as a substitute teacher, he became a professional journalist, writing for Curentul, Epoca and Mișcarea, serving as editor-in-chief for the far-right dailies Calendarul and Porunca vremii, and directing Sfarmă-Piatră in 1940. From 1940 to 1946, he was press attaché in Sofia, where he put together an edition on Romanian culture for Serdika and published Cultura românească și centrul ei: Bucureștii (1943). He clerked at the virology institute (1955-1956) and at the Romanian Academy's linguistics institute (1957), before editing Glasul Patriei magazine from 1957 to 1972.

He made his published debut in 1924, in Cultul eroilor noștri. Other magazines that ran his work include Gândirea, Rampa, Calendarul, Vremea, Adevărul literar și artistic, Viața literară, Bilete de Papagal, Azi and Revista Fundațiilor Regale. His first book was the 1930 Epigrame, followed by poetry collections Bulgări și stele (1933), Maria (1938), Dă-mi înapoi grădinile (1939), the self-selected anthology Versuri (1968) and the previously unpublished verses in Vinul sălbatic (1977). His prose volumes (Bacalaureatul lui Puiu, 1933; Dragoste cu termen redus, 1934; Buruieni de dragoste, 1936) reveal a humorist receptive toward comedy and satire. Together with Al. С. Calotescu-Neicu, he published Antologia epigramei românești (1933) and, working alone, the anthology Epigramiști români de ieri și de azi (1975). From early on, he created a reputation as a haughty, blustering countryside poet and as a prose writer inclined toward the licentious. Gradually, his lyricism became purer and more temperate, in line with an authentic peasant traditionalism. He won the Romanian Writers' Society prize in 1934.