Louis-Ferdinand Céline 6 books

Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches ; 27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961). He was a French novelist, pamphleteer and physician. The name Céline was the first name of his grandmother. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and world literature.

Journey to the End of the Night is among the most acclaimed novels of the 20th century.[citation needed] Few first novels have had a comparable impact. Written in an explosive and highly colloquial style, the book shocked most critics but found immediate success with the French reading public, which responded enthusiastically to the violent misadventures of its petit-bourgeois antihero, Bardamu, and his characteristic nihilism. The author's military experiences in World War I, his travels to colonial French West Africa, New York, and his return to postwar France all provide episodes within the sprawling narrative

Céline's legacy survives in the writings of Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, Queneau and Jean Genet among others. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Robbe-Grillet, and Barthes expressed admiration for him. In the United States, writers Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William S. Burroughs, Edward Abbey, Jim Morrison and Ken Kesey owe an obvious debt to the author of Voyage au bout de la nuit.[13] Bukowski wrote "'first of all read Céline; the greatest writer of 2,000 years"[21] Céline was also an influence on Irvine Welsh, Günter Grass, and Raymond Federman.