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Paul Éluard (1895–1952) was instrumental in the founding and proliferation of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements in post-WWI Europe. Over the course of his life, he published more than seventy volumes of poetry, including Capitale de la douleur (1926) and L’Immaculeé Conception (1930), the latter a collaboration with André Breton. Éluard was a radically political poet and activist, his work frequently circulating during WWII as an illicit protest against France’s collaborationist Vichy government.

Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno is a biographer, essayist, and poet. His books include E.E. Cummings: A Biography (Methuen Publishing, 2005) and The Continual Pilgrimage: American Writers in Paris, 1944-1960 (City Lights, 2001). (updated 6/2010)