Panait Istrati (; sometimes rendered as ''Panaït Istrati''; (August 10, 1884 – April 16, 1935) was a Romanian working class writer, who wrote in French and Romanian, nicknamed ''The Maxim Gorky of the Balkans''. Istrati appears to be the first Romanian author explicitly depicting a homosexual character in his work.
Although he lived and worked mainly in Romania, due to his impact on French literature, Istrati is sometimes also labeled as "French writer".
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