Born in Păușa village,
Nojorid (
Bihor County), he attended the
University of Medicine and Pharmacy in
Cluj, but left before completing his studies. Later, he studied at
Babeș-Bolyai University (Faculty of Philology). He then worked as a reporter for the literary magazine '
, from 1956 to 1969, and served as editor of ' magazine, from 1969 to 1982. From 1982 he was editor-in-chief of
Contemporanul. Since 2006, he has been the General Manager of the Romanian Academy's publishing house. Popescu received the Prize of the Romanian Writers' Union on five occasions (in 1964, 1969, 1974, 1977, and 1980), and the Prize of the Romanian Academy in 1970. In addition to his literary activities, beginning in 1968, he was a substitute member of the
Central Committee of the
Romanian Communist Party and was elected to the
Great National Assembly in 1975. From 1979 to 1989, he was a full member of the committee. In 1983, one of his books was in the middle of a fight between a Romanian review,
România Literară, and a Russian one,
Literaturnaya Gazeta. For the Russians, his book about life after the war was too dark. ==Death==