born Sept. 10, 1897, Billom, France
died July 9, 1962, Paris
French librarian and writer.
He trained as an archivist and worked at the Bibliothèque Nationale and at the Orléans library. He wrote a number of novels under pseudonyms before publishing Le Coupable (1944; Guilty ) under his own name. His novels, essays, and poetry show a fascination with eroticism, mysticism, violence, and an ideal of excess and waste. In 1946 he founded the influential literary review Critique , which he edited until his death.