Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Born Louis-Ferdinand Destouches in Courbevoie[?] in the Seine Department on May 27, 1894. From a poor family, after receiving only a basic education he joined the French cavalry. He fought in WWI and was decorated for his actions in a battle whgere he was gravely wounded in the head. The subsequent physical and mental suffering had lifelong effects on him.

He was dischaged from the Army and after the war studied to obtain a medical degree. He worked in France as a doctor then travelled to the United States where he was the staff surgeon at the Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit, Michigan. Next, he worked in Africa and for the new League of Nations before taking up a permanent position as a doctor to the poor in Paris. He then started to write in his spare time.

His best known work is also his first: 'Voyage au bout de la nuit' (translated as 'Journey to the end of the night', most recently and successfully by Ralph Manheim) broke many literary conventions of the time, using the rhythms and, to a certain extent, the vocabulary of slang and vulgar speech.

Céline died on July 1, 1961 of a ruptured aneurysm and was interred in a small cemetery at Bas Meudon[?].