("Life as Prey") and in Cel mai iubit dintre pământeni ("The Most Beloved of Earthlings"). In 1940, following the Second Vienna Award, which transferred parts of Transylvania to Hungary, Preda began to attend school in Bucharest. In January 1941 he witnessed the turbulent events of the Legionary Rebellion and its repression by Ion Antonescu. He kept contact with Transylvanian refugees and met with soldiers settled in Bucharest. Three decades later, he would recount these events in Viața ca o pradă and Delirul ("The Delirium"). At the end of the 1940–1941 school year, with help of the school's headmaster, he took the skills examination, but due to material difficulties he dropped out of school. During the summer, Preda did not return to his native village: "I had the impression that if I return, I will not be able to leave." He had failed to publish anything and not even found a job, Marin Preda found increasingly difficult: "It is impossible for me to remember and understand how I was able to live, from what sources, all autumn and all winter of 1941 -1942. Only unrelated, unnatural things ... I had nowhere to sleep, there was sleet all over Bucharest, and I walked non-stop by tram from Gara de Nord to Gara de Est. All day and all night." Sometimes he visited his brother Nilă, in a tiny attic where "he was lost for hours, with his elbows under his neck." In the collected volume of poems Sârmă ghimpată ("Barbed Wire"), Romanian poet Geo Dumitrescu intended to include Preda's poem, "The Return of the Wandering Son", but the collection was banned from print. In 1941, also through Geo Dumitrescu, Preda was hired as a proofreader for the newspaper Timpul. Literary activity In April 1942, Preda made his publishing debut with the sketch "Părlitu" ("Burnt") in the newspaper Timpul, endorsed by the poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu. His debut at the age of 20 gave him confidence in his writing, and he continued to publish sketches and stories, including "Strigoaica" ("The Undead"), "Salcâmul" ("The Acacia"), "Calul" ("The Horse"), "Noaptea" ("The Night"), and "La câmp" ("In the Field"). In September, Preda resigned from his proofreading position at Timpul. For a short time he was a civil servant at the Institute of Statistics. On the recommendation of critic Eugen Lovinescu, the poet Ion Vinea hired him as editorial secretary at the newspaper Evenimentul zilei ("Today's Event").