Boris Vian

Boris Vian was a French polymath writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their release. Vians other fiction, published under his real name, featured a highly individual writing style with numerous madeup words, subtle wordplay and surrealistic plots. Lcume des jours is the best known of these works, and one of the few translated into English.

Vian was born in 1920 into an upper middleclass family in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Ville dAvray . His parents were Paul Vian, a young rentier, and Yvonne Ramenez, amateur pianist and harpist. From his father Vian inherited a distrust of the church and the military, as well as a love of the bohemian life. Vian was the second of four children the others were Llio , Alain and Ninon . The family occupied the Les Fauvettes villa. The name Boris was chosen by Yvonne, an avid classical music lover, after seeing a performance of Mussorgskys opera Boris Godunov.

Source: Wikipedia