The authors:
Born Eugène Grindel, Paul Éluard (1895-1952) first participated in the Dadaist movement before joining the surrealists and their leading figures André Breton, Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault. Best known for being the emblematic poet of the Resistance during a particular somber chapter of French history, Éluard was also a communist activist and is hailed until today as the great bard of love lyricism. Éditions Seghers has regrouped all his important poetic and critical works in a series of volumes. The most beautiful and celebrated amongst them are The Poet and his Shadow [Le Poète et son Ombre], Unintentional and intentional Poetry [Poésie involontaire et Poésie intentionnelle], The immaculate Conception [L'Immaculée Conception] written together with André Breton, and Juvenilia: letters [Lettres de Jeunesse].
The life of André Breton (1896-1966) seems inseparable from the surrealist movement. Strongly influenced by the great Paul Valéry, he co-founds the literary magazine “Littérature” with Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault and publishes The Magnetic Fields [Les champs magnétiques]. In 1924, the magazine publishes the first surrealist manifesto, a second is published in 1930. Until his death, André Breton incarnates a certain orthodoxy of the surrealist movement that he has always defended against any kind of dogmatic and political instrumentation.