Maria Banuș (born Marioara Banuș; April 10, 1914 – July 14, 1999) was a Romanian poet, essayist, prose writer and translator. Born into a Jewish family in Bucharest, her parents were Max Banuș, an accountant and later a director at the Carol Street branch of , and his wife Anette (née Marcus). Due to her fragile health, she began primary school with private lessons, taking tests at the Lucaci Street School from 1920 to 1923. She attended high school at the Pompilian Institute from 1923 to 1931, and from 1931 to 1934, studied at the University of Bucharest's faculties of law and literature. She made her published debut as an adolescent, with the poem "14 ani", which appeared in Bilete de Papagal in 1928, under her birth name Marioara Banuș. In 1932, while she was a student, her poems appear