1773
First Published
4.12
Average Rating
204
Number of Pages
Through combining liberty of syntax with a snappy 'American' style, Boris Vian invented modern French journalism as represented by such successful publications as the daily newspaper Liberation and the slick monthly magazine Actuel. He was at the centre of the Existentialist scene after the Second World War and played comet a la Bix Beiderbecke in the caves of St. Germain des Pres. Such novels as his Autumn in Peking and Froth on the Daydream are still available and read by today's youth. More than any other critic, Vian translated the joy and swing of jazz into prose in his passionate columns in Jazz Hot and Combat in the 1940s and 1950s. Since Vian's French is impossible to translate literally, and since many of his pieces were written for their time and place, this anthology is a selective and adapted the best of Boris Vian.
Avg Rating
4.12
Number of Ratings
34
5 STARS
38%
4 STARS
44%
3 STARS
9%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Boris Vian
Author · 29 books
Boris Vian was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered for novels such as L’Écume des jours and L'Arrache-cœur (translated into English as Froth on the Daydream and Heartsnatcher, respectively). He is also known for highly controversial "criminal" fiction released under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan and some of his songs (particularly the anti-war Le Déserteur). Vian was also fascinated with jazz: he served as liaison for, among others, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis in Paris, wrote for several French jazz-reviews (Le Jazz Hot, Paris Jazz) and published numerous articles dealing with jazz both in the United States and in France.
