(1894-1961) novelist
Louis-Ferdinand Celine was born Louis Ferdinand Destouches on May 27 in Courbevoie to a working-class family. He grew up in Paris, where his mother ran a lace shop. In 1912, he enlisted in the army and served in World War I, where he was severely wounded and left with permanent disabilities. He returned to France to study medicine, going on to become a doctor.
Celine became famous as a writer with the publication of his first novel, Journey to the End of the Night (1932; translated 1943). Praised by right-wing extremists, the work was largely based on Celine’s own adventures: in the trenches during World War I, running a trading post in Africa, working in a factory in the United States, and returning to Paris to practice medicine. His second novel, Death on the Installment Plan (1936; translated 1938), which continues the protagonist’s story from Journey to the End of the Night, was also a critical success. Celine’s popularity stemmed largely from the contemporary nature of his writing and its relevance to the understanding of current events and world situations.
In the late 1930s, Celine traveled to the Soviet Union, where he wrote the first of several notorious anti-Semitic, pacifist pamphlets, declaring his disenchantment with war. He began to focus his writing in an attempt to prevent his country from entering World War II. After the war, Celine was accused of having Nazi sympathies. He fled to Germany, where he remained in exile until 1951.
In all of Celine’s works, his characters’ lives are filled with failure, anxiety, and nihilism. He had difficulty communicating during his life and sank progressively into depression, madness, and rage. His novels display this through their depictions of giants, paraplegics, and gnomes, as well as graphic visions of dismemberment and murder.
Celine died on July 1 of a ruptured aneurysm. Though his works remain controversial, his attacks against war have influenced such writers as Henry Miller and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. His influence on world literature stems largely from his willingness to write about controversial subjects and his innovative style (his use of first-person narrative and slang).
Another Work by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Ballets Without Music, Without Dancers, Without Anything. Translated by Thomas and Carol Chris-tensen. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999.
A Work about Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Hewitt, Nicholas. The Life of Celine: A Critical Biography. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999.
