Ion Hobana

Ion Hobana, first name also Ioan, last name also Hobană was a Romanian science fiction writer, literary critic and ufologist. His debut as a journalist, novelist and children's poet coincided with the early stages of Romanian communism, when he was also employed as an editor and translator; at that stage, Hobana adhered to Marxism-Leninism and socialist realism, which influenced his literary output. His participation in the local field of science fiction began in during his period studying at the University of Bucharest, when he produced a pioneering paper on the work of Jules Verne. It continued in the late 1950s, with stories which focused on describing futuristic technology in a terrestrial setting. By the early 1960s, Hobana was also a critic and theorist of science fiction, postulating that Romanian science-fiction culture was a byproduct of communism. He revisited the thesis later that decade, producing award-winning essays about pre-modern science fiction, Romanian as well as foreign. He was also involved on the scene as an anthologist and film critic.