Robert Desnos (1900–1945)

Robert Desnos was born in Paris, the son of a prosperous café owner. He became a literary columnist for the newspaper Paris-Soir and published some of his first poems in the Dadaist magazine Littérature in 1919. In 1922, he published his first book, Rrose Selavy, a collection of Surrealistic aphorisms; the name was a pun on "Eros, c'est la vie." He befriended the poets André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Paul Eluard, with whom he formed the literary vanguard of Surrealism. Desnos was hailed as the most accomplished practitioner of "automatic writing," which involved falling into a hypnotic trance and then reciting, writing, and drawing. Between 1920 and 1930, he published more than eight books of poetry. In the 1930s, he married Lucie "Youki" Badoud Foujita, and in addition to poems, wrote scripts for French radio and television. At the start of World War II in 1939, he served in the French Army. After France surrendered to Nazi Germany, he returned to Paris under the Occupation and worked for the Resistance. Using pseudonyms such as Lucien Gallois and Pierre Andier, he published a series of essays that subtly mocked the Nazis. In 1944, he was arrested and deported first to Auschwitz and then to the concentration camp at Terezín (Theresienstadt) in Czechoslovakia. He survived to be liberated from the camp in 1945, but had contracted typhoid and died a few weeks later. His collection Selected Poems was first translated and published in English in 1972 and again in 1991.

Geboren in 1900, sloot hij zich aan bij de groep Dadaïsten, en werkte voor het tijdschrift "La Révolution Surréaliste". Na de breuk met de surrealisten, ging hij werken als journalist. Tijdens de oorlog ging hij in het verzet, werd gearresteerd en weggevoerd. Hij verbleef in verschillende concentratiekampen, en overleed op 8 juni 1945 te Mariënstadt.