Boris Vian

Boris Vian was born in 1920 to an upper middle-class family in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Ville D’Avray. His early childhood was a privileged one, and even after his father lost most of his wealth in the crash of 1929, the family still managed to maintain a comfortable existence, renting out the main villa at the Ville d’Avray to the Menuhins of later musical fame while living in a small cottage on the property. His liberal upbringing included, among other indulgences, frequent surprise-parties (the English word was used at the time), unscripted social gatherings where “convention gave way to invention, and the more wayward the invention the better.” Vian relished the novelty and absurdity of this childish pastime, and as an adult he continued to host surprise-parties from time to time. Before his teen years had expired, Vian was keeping a diary and had already written several works of fiction.Vian earned a degree as a civil engineer and began his career at the French Association for Standardisation where Vian held an undemanding post, and amused himself with pataphysical conundra, by composing songs and sketching sub-aqueous plants, and by publishing a chapbook for friends that satirized his colleagues.Vian wrote 10 novels, including popular hardboiled thrillers published under the name Vernon Sullivan, Vian's fictionalised American persona. The Sullivan --uvre earned Vian opprobrium and fame in equal measure, and he was fined 100,000 francs for the 100,000 copies sold of J'irai cracher sur vos tombes. His books were frequently banned.[citation needed]Under his own name Vian published L'Arrache-C--ur (Heartsnatcher), L'Herbe Rouge, L'automne à Pékin and what critics regard as his masterpiece, L'Écume des Jours. L'Écume des Jours appears in three English translations, but Stanley Chapman's translation, called Froth on the Daydream, is the most highly regarded. L'Écume des Jours was translated by an American in 1968 as Mood Indigo (named for the famous Duke Ellington song), and most recently by Brian Harper as Foam of the Daze. Paul Knobloch has also translated "Autumn in Peking", which has received spectacular reviews, including one from American novelist James Sallis. It was published in 2004 by TamTam books. In addition, Paul Knobloch did the recent and first-ever English translation of "The Manual of Saint-Germain-des-Prés", published by Rizzoli International in concert with TamTam. He is currently at work on two other Vian/Sullivan novels: "Les morts on tous la même peau", and "Et on tuera tous les affreux" (“The dead all have the same skin” and “To hell with the ugly”).Vian was Raymond Chandler's French translator; he was intimately, if remotely, involved with American pop-culture and its reception in France.He also authored plays, short stories and songs, including a 1958 collaboration on the opera Fiesta with Darius Milhaud. He often played jazz at the "Tabou", a club (now defunct) located in the Rue Dauphine, close to Saint-Germain des Prés, in Paris. He played a pocket trumpet, which he called "trompinette" in his poems. His most famous song was "Le déserteur", a pacifist song written during the Indochina War. His songs were recorded by a variety of other artists, including Juliette Gréco, Nana Mouskouri, Yves Montand, Magali Noel, and Henri Salvador. Serge Gainsbourg said that seeing Boris Vian on stage inspired him to try his hand at songwriting.