Blaise Cendrars Summary

Blaise Cendrars is in every way an extraordinary figure. His life was full of fascinating adventures, yet he invented a series of myths about himself to make it seem even more fascinating. He revoluti... Read more

In the following review, Maris provides some of the historical background for Cendrars's novel Sutter's Gold. In Sutter's Gold Blaise Cendrars has once more turned to America, a l... Read more

In the following excerpt, Zweig provides a mixed, but generally favorable, review of the volume Blaise Cendrars, Selected Writings. He is, however, critical of the quality of translation. Blaise Cendr... Read more

The following is a brief review of Cendrars's novel Moravagine. A certified lunatic leaps over a Swiss asylum wall to the car of the psychiatrist abetting his escape. In his hand there is a blo... Read more

Below, Houston reviews several of Cendrars's poems from the volume Selected Writings of Blaise Cendrars. After a recent spate of good biographies and translations of Apollinaire, the English-sp... Read more

In the following review, Bowles praises Cendrars's Gold. In the spring of 1834, Johann August Suter, a thirty-one-year-old bankrupt Swiss papermaker, deserted his wife and four children and set... Read more

Below, Kennison presents an emphatically positive review of Moravagine. Moravagine is that rare novel that sticks in your soul like a new gospel, written in blood in the last days, lost to us till now... Read more

Below, Foden gives a comprehensive review of Cendrars's body of poetry. Fighting in the First World War as a Swiss national in "la Marocaine", the original Foreign Legion, Blaise ... Read more

In the following review, Lampert-Greaux finds Cendrars's journal of his trip to Hollywood still relevant sixty years later. Hollywood has always held a fascination for the French, much to the d... Read more

In the following review, Werner provides some of the facts behind the fiction of L'Or, Cendrars's account of Johann Sutter's life. The romantic mind of a French poet has conceived... Read more

In the following excerpt, Benet favorably reviews John Dos Passos's translation of Cendrars's Panama, or The Adventures of My Seven Uncles. The most living and original work before me th... Read more

In the following interview, originally broadcast on April 25, 1950, Cendrars ruminates on the artists and authors of his time. Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961) is one of the giants of modern literat... Read more

Rexroth is a poet, critic, and translator. In the following review, he presents a mixed opinion of Cendrars's poetic contribution. The greatest poet of the Cubist epoch was Pierre Reverdy, beca... Read more

Critical Essay by Henry Miller My first taste of [Cendrars] in his own language came at a time when my French was none too proficient. I began with Moravagine, a book by no means easy to read for one ... Read more

Critical Essay by Jay Bochner Cendrars always deals with a unified core of concerns or themes, and interweaving … is a necessary technique for searching out an elusive and complex centre. In th... Read more