Elsa Triolet
Elsa Triolet, born Elsa Kagan in 1896 in Moscow, was a notable Russian-born French writer and intellectual. She studied architecture and began her literary career in Moscow, where she published autobiographical fiction before relocating to France. After marrying French military attaché André Triolet in 1918, she experienced a tumultuous life marked by travel and personal relationships, including a significant partnership with writer Louis Aragon, whom she married in 1939. During World War II, Triolet was actively involved in the French resistance against Nazi occupation and received the Médaille de la Resistance for her efforts.
Triolet's literary contributions include her acclaimed collection of short stories, "Bonsoir Thérèse," and the popular novel "Le Cheval blanc," which portrays life in France during the interwar years and early Nazi occupation. Despite facing censorship from the Nazis, she continued to write, using a pen name for her underground publications. Her works often reflect her critical perspectives on leftist politics and the disillusionment of postwar Europe. Throughout her career, she produced fiction, literary essays, and translations of Russian drama, establishing herself as a respected figure in French literature until her death in 1970.
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Elsa Triolet
Writer
- Born: September 25, 1896
- Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
- Died: June 16, 1970
- Place of death:
Biography
Elsa Triolet was born Elsa Kagan in 1896 in Moscow, Russia. Her father, Yuri Kagan, was a lawyer; her mother, Helena Youlievna Berman, a pianist. Triolet studied architecture at the Lycée Valitzki in Moscow, earning a diploma. During the Russian Revolution, she met a French military attaché, Captain André Triolet, and married him in Paris in 1918. The couple then went to Tahiti, at that time a French colony, in 1919, but Else returned alone the next year. The couple later divorced.
Triolet embarked on a series of travels, staying in London, Paris, and Berlin, where she had an affair with the painter Ivan Pugny, eventually returning to Moscow. She published her first fiction while in Moscow, all of which was autobiographical; the works originally were written in Russian and later translated into French. She returned to France, where she met the writer and left-wing intellectual Louis Aragon. They became partners in 1928, eventually marrying in 1939. During World War II, they both were heavily involved in the resistance movement against the Nazis, living in Vichy, France, for a while before going into hiding. Triolet later was awarded the Médaille de la Resistance for her efforts during the war.
Troilet managed to continue writing during the war. After World War II, she distanced herself from the Communist Party, to which her husband belonged. She died in 1970, a well-respected literary figure in France and part of an intellectual duo.
Her first publication in French was a collection of short stories, Bonsoir Thérèse, which demonstrated her aptitude for close observation. Another collection, Mille Regrets, appeared in 1942, followed a year later by her novel, Le Cheval blanc (1943; The White Charger, 1946). This novel, set in France in the years between the two world wars and the first years of Nazi occupation, was very popular. However, after the book was published, the Nazis banned her from publishing any others. In response to the ban, Triolet had underground publishers print her work and wrote under the pen name Laurent Daniel. In these conditions, she wrote Les Amants d’Avignon; 1943; The Lovers of Avignon, 1947), which depicts life in France during the Vichy regime. This work later was included in a short-story collection, Le Premier accroc coûte deux cents francs (1945; A Fine of Two Hundred Francs, 1947). Triolet received the Prix Goncourt in 1945 for this collection.
Personne ne m’aime, her first postwar fiction, appeared in 1946 and was about the isolation of the artist. Its sequel, Les Fantômes armés, was a more bitter book, showing the postwar disillusionment as Europe split apart in the Cold War. Triolet’s critical view of the left-wing was noticeable in her novel Le Monument. Her best novel is considered to be L’Inspecteur des ruines (1948, The Inspector of Ruins, 1952). Set in postwar Europe, it traces its protagonist, Antonin Blond, as he becomes increasingly rootless and lawless.
Triolet continued to write fiction, as well as drama reviews and literary essays, in the following years, including a trilogy of novels collectively titled L’âge de Nylon. Her last novel, Le Rossignol se tait à l’aube, was published in 1970. Triolet also translated Russian drama into French and produced several biographies of Russian poets.