SELECTED WRIT CENDRARS PA

Frederic-Louis Sauser was born on September 1, 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Swiss canton of Neuchatel. At the outbreak of World War I, Cendrars—a fictitious name he assumed in 1907—joined the Foreign Legion. His military career was out short when he lost his right arm as a result of a wound. Adapting to his handicap he learned to type, write, and drive with his left hand. He returned to Paris and continued to write and serve as editor for the Editions de la Sirene as well as show an interest in moviemaking. Cendrars died in Paris in 1961. John Dos Passos was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1896. Upon returning from Europe, where he served as an ambulance driver in Paris and Italy during the war, Dos Passos published his first novel, One Man’s Initiation, in 1920. He completed Manhattan Transfer in 1925 and the hugely influential U.S.A. trilogy in 1936. Dos Passos continued to write and publish novels, biographies, and essays until his death in 1970.

"Everything is written in blood, but a blood that is saturated with starlight. You can look clean through him and see the planets wheeling. The silence he creates is deafening. It takes you back to the beginning of the world, to that hush which is engraved on the face of mystery."