Lice

Born in Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, in 1887, Blaise Cendrars ran away from home when he was just fifteen to work for a jewel merchant. He traveled with the merchant through Russia, Persia, and China. Cendrars, who was educated in Naples, Italy, finally settled in St. Petersburg to work as an apprentice to a clockmaker. Fighting for the French in World War I, Cendrars lost his right arm, but taught himself to type left-handed. Cendrars wrote his first long poem, Easter in New York, in the United States. And his first novel, L'Or, which focused on the California gold rush, was eventually made into the American movie Sutter's Gold. Cendrars chronicled his experiences in Hollywood in articles for Paris-Soir; the articles were published as a book, Hollywood: Mecca of the Movies, in 1995. Other Cendrars titles include Christmas at the Four Corners of the Earth, Rhum, and Lice. Cendrars's novels earned him a worldwide reputation and one of France's highest literary honors, the Prix Litteraire de la Ville de Paris. Considered a prime catalyst of the modernist movement, Cendrars also wrote poems, plays, and short stories. Cendrars died in 1961 at the age of 74.