Boris Vian

Boris Vian was born in 1920 in Ville-d'Avray, a suburb of Paris. Trained as an engineer at the Ecole Centrale, he became one of the most colorful figures in postwar Parisian intellectual life, working simultaneously as a novelist, poet, playwright, jazz trumpeter, singer-songwriter, translator, and actor. He was a central figure in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres jazz scene, performing regularly at clubs and befriending visiting American musicians including Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan, he wrote a series of hard-boiled crime novels that caused scandal and led to obscenity charges. He translated Raymond Chandler and American science fiction into French, and wrote over four hundred songs, several of which became French standards. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by Froth on the Daydream.