Blaise Cendrars was a pioneer of modernist literature. The full range of his poetry--from classical rhymed alexandrines to "cubist" modernism, and from feverish, even visionary, depression to airy good humor--offers a challenge no translator has accepted until now.

Here, for the first time in English translation, is the complete poetry of a legendary twentieth-century French writer. Cendrars, born Frederick Louis Sauser in 1887, invented his life as well as his art. His adventures took him to Russia during the revolution of 1905 (where he traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railway), to New...

Blaise Cendrars, one of twentieth-century France's most gifted men of letters, came to Hollywood in 1936 for the newspaper Paris-Soir. Already a well-known poet, Cendrars was a celebrity journalist whose perceptive dispatches from the American dream factory captivated millions. These articles were later published as Hollywood: Mecca of the Movies, which has since appeared in many languages. Remarkably, this is its first translation into English.

Hollywood in 1936 was crowded with stars, moguls, directors, scouts, and script girls. Though no stranger to filmmaking (he had...

At once truly appalling and appallingly funny, Blaise Cendrars's Moravagine bears comparison with Naked Lunch--except that it's a lot more entertaining to read. Heir to an immense aristocratic fortune, mental and physical mutant Moravagine is a monster, a man in pursuit of a theorem that will justify his every desire. Released from a hospital for the criminally insane by his starstruck psychiatrist (the narrator of the book), who foresees a companionship in crime that will also be an unprecedented scientific collaboration, Moravagine travels from Moscow to San Antonio to deepest Amazonia,...

A collection of the best of Blaise Cendrars poetry. Includes three short prose pieces.