Triolet, Elsa
Triolet, Elsa
(Elsa Blick) (ĕlsä` trēôlĕ`), c.1896–1970, Russian-French author, b. Moscow. In 1928 she married the French writer Louis AragonAragon, Louis, 1897–1982, French writer. One of the founders of surrealism in literature, Aragon abandoned that philosophy for Marxism after a trip to the USSR in 1931.
..... Click the link for more information. . Her novels often combine a sweeping Russian grandeur with acute observations of French life. They include Le cheval blanc (1943; tr. The White Charger, 1946), Personne ne m'aime [nobody loves me] (1946), Les Fantômes armées [the phantom armies] (1946), and L'Inspecteur des ruines (1948; tr. The Inspector of Ruins, 1953). Among her collections of stories is Le Premier Accroc du coûte deux cents francs (1945; tr. A Fine of 200 Francs, 1947).
Triolet, Elsa
Born Sept. 12 (24), 1896, in Moscow; died June 16,1970, in Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, department of Yve-lines. French writer.
Triolet received an advanced degree in architecture in Moscow. Beginning in the mid–1920’s she lived in France, but often traveled to the USSR. In 1928 she married L. Aragon.
Triolet’s first literary works were written in Russian, among them In Tahiti (1925). Her first book written in French was the novel Good Evening, Teresa! (1938). During World War II (1939–45), Triolet took part in the Resistance and her books were published by underground publishing houses. The short stories in the collection The Fine for a Rip in the Cloth Is Two Hundred Francs (1945) dealt with the selfless struggle of the French partisans. The novel Armed Phantoms (1947) warned against the dangers of a revival of fascism.
The conquest of loneliness was the theme of Triolet’s novels No One Loves Me (1946) and The Inspector of the Ruins (1948; Russian translation, The Stranger, 1956). The semifantastic novel The Chestnut Horse (1953) dealt with the prevention of atomic war. Triolet’s multithematic novel The Meeting of Strangers (1956; Russian translation, Unbidden Guests, 1958) contrasted the concepts of patriotism and internationalism with those of racism and cosmopolitanism. The novels Roses on Credit (1959), Luna Park (1959), and The Soul (1963), which appeared in the cycle The Age of Nylon, were devoted to man’s search for happiness. The novels The Monument (1957), The Great Never (1965; Russian translation, 1966), and Listen and Look (1968) elucidated historical truth, which transforms the role of art in the modern world. Triolet’s lyric novel The Nightingale Becomes Silent at Dawn was published in 1970.
Triolet popularized Russian and Soviet literature in France. She wrote a book about Chekhov and memoirs about Mayakov-sky. She also translated works by Gogol, Chekhov, and Maya-kovsky into French and compiled an anthology of Russian and Soviety poetry (1965). Her works are imbued with love for mankind and apprehensive meditations about human fate. She was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor in 1967.
WORKS
Elsa Triolet choisiepar Aragon. [Paris, 1961.]Oeuvres romanesques croisées d’Elsa Triolet et Aragon, vols. 1–42. Paris, 1964–74.
La Mise en mots. Paris [1969].
Proverbes d’Elsa. [Paris, 1971.]
In Russian translation:
Neilonovyi vek. Moscow, 1960.
Dusha. Foreward by K. Simonov. [Moscow, 1967.]
REFERENCES
Balashova, T. V. Frantsuzskii roman 60-kh godov. Moscow, 1965.“Pamiati El’zy Triole.” Inostrannaia literatura, 1970, no. 9.
Madaule, J. Ce que dit Elsa. Paris [1961].
“Elsa Triolet et Aragon.” Europe, February-March 1967, no. 454–55.
“Elsa Triolet.” Ibid., June 1971, no. 506.
A. A. ISBAKH