Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion in the 20th century and an interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day.

Eliade's theory suggested that hierophanies form the basis of religion, dividing the human experience of reality into sacred and profane spaces and times. This theory, along with his idea of the eternal return—which posits that myths and rituals do not merely commemorate hierophanies but actually participate in them—has been particularly influential.

His literary works belong to the fantastic and autobiographical genres. Some of his most renowned novels include Maitreyi (also known as La Nuit Bengali or Bengal Nights, 1933), Noaptea de Sânziene (The Forbidden Forest, 1955), Isabel și apele diavolului (Isabel and the Devil's Waters), and Romanul Adolescentului Miop (Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent, 1989). His novellas and short stories, such as Domnișoara Christina (Miss Christina, 1936) and Tinerețe fără tinerețe (Youth Without Youth, 1976), added to his literary acclaim.

Early in his career, Eliade was a journalist and essayist, a disciple of the Romanian philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and a member of the literary society Criterion. During the 1940s, he served as a cultural attaché for the Kingdom of Romania in the United Kingdom and Portugal. However, his public support for the Iron Guard, a Romanian Christian fascist organization, and other far-right connections during the late 1930s have been subjects of criticism.

Noted for his vast erudition, Eliade was fluent in five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and had a reading knowledge of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). In 1990, he was posthumously elected a member of the Romanian Academy.