Isac Ludo was a Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n writer and political figure.

Born into a Jewish-Romanian

History of the Jews in Romania

The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....

 family, Ludo was active in left-wing literary circles prior to World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. After the Communist take-over

Communist Romania

Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

 in 1947, he rose to important positions in the régime's censorship office

Censorship in Communist Romania

Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...

.

Prior to 1965, he published a series of novels — Domnul general guvernează ("The General Rules"), Starea de asediu ("State of Siege"), Regele Palaelibus ("King Palaelibus"), Salvatorul ("The Saver"), Ultimul batalion ("The Last Battalion") — which constituted a satirical

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 panorama of political life in Greater Romania

Greater Romania

The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...

.

Ludo also published translations into Romanian

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

 from the Yiddish language

Yiddish language

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

 writer Scholem Aleichem.