Gallimard's Quarto Edition Celebrates Blaise Cendrars' Restless Life and Writing

Gallimard has published 'Partir', a new Quarto edition of Blaise Cendrars' works, edited by Claude Leroy, spanning over 1,300 pages. The volume collects poems, novels, short stories, and memoirs, with a focus on the theme of departure. Cendrars, born Frédéric Louis Sauser in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland in 1887, was a perpetual traveler who visited Saint Petersburg, New York, Paris, Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil. He was a war veteran who lost his right arm in 1915, an event he considered his true birth. Cendrars was critical of his avant-garde contemporaries, including Robert Delaunay, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Arthur Cravan, whom he accused of being draft dodgers. He was a nihilist who distrusted ideologies, as expressed in his novel 'Moravagine'. Despite his obscene and politically incorrect reputation, Cendrars was a devoted admirer of Saint Joseph of Copertino, to whom he dedicated a book. He famously claimed that all great books are autobiographical, and when questioned about his 'Prose du Transsibérien', he retorted, 'What does it matter, since I made you all take it.' The edition includes photographs and a bio-bibliography.