Ion Druță

Ion Druţă was born on September 3, 1928, in the Horodişte village, the Soroca County, the Kingdom of Romania (now in Dondușeni District, Republic of Moldova). He graduated from the Forestry School and the Higher Courses of the Institute of Literature "Maxim Gorki" of the Writers Union of the USSR. Since 1969 he has settled in Moscow, Russia.

The first stories of the prose writer are published in the early 1950s. His works, gathered in 4 volumes, Leaves of Longing, Ballads from the Plain, Last Autumn Month, The Burden of Our Goodness, The Belfry, The Horodişte, The Return of the Ground in the Earth, The White Church, The Pastor's Stick, etc. are part of "the gold fund" of contemporary national literature.

Since 1987 Ion Druţă is the Honorary President of the Writers' Union of the Republic of Moldova, where he was unanimously elected to the General Assembly of the Writers.

Druţă has been the honorary president of the Moldovan Writers' Union since 1987. He wrote initially in Romanian, since 1960 also in Russian.

• Ordinul Drapelul Roşu de Muncă (1960)
• Ordinul Lenin (1988)
• Ordinul Republicii (1993)
• Laureat al Premiului de Stat al RSS Moldoveneşti pentru romanul “Balade din cîmpie” şi nuvela “Ultima lună de toamnă” (1967).
• Scriitor al Poporului din RSS Moldovenească (1988)
• Membru de Onoare al Academiei Române (1990).
• Membru activ of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova (1992).
• Doctor Honoris Causa of the Moldova State University (1999).
• Laureat al Premiului de Stat al Republicii Moldova în domeniul literaturii (2008)

• Thanksgiving Candle

• Druţă's short story The Samaritan Woman of Trezvory in English.
• Ion Druţă (in Romanian)