French · 1887–1961
Swiss-born French poet and novelist who lived like he wrote—fast and far. Born Frédéric-Louis Sauser, he traveled the world before World War I, lost his right arm fighting for France, and wrote in every genre. "The Prose of the Trans-Siberian" invented a kind of cubist travel poem. Moravagine, his strangest novel, follows a murderer across continents. He worked in film, wrote celebrity memoirs, and never stopped moving. The prose surges with energy and invention; the persona was as deliberate as the art.