Blaise Cendrars Frédéric - Louis Sauser ( September 1 , 1887 – January 21 , 1961 ) , better known as Blaise Cendrars , was a Swiss novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916 . He was a writer of considerable influence in the European modernist movement . Early years and education . He was born in La Chaux - de - Fonds , Neuchâtel , Switzerland , to a bourgeois francophone family . They sent young Frédéric to a German boarding school , but he ran away . Next they enrolled him in a school in Neuchâtel , but he had little enthusiasm for his studies . Finally , in 1904 , he left school due to poor performance and began an apprenticeship with a Swiss watchmaker in Russia . While living in St . Petersburg , he began to write , thanks to the encouragement of R . R . , a librarian at the National Library of Russia . There he wrote the poem , " La Légende de Novagorode " , which R . R . translated into Russian . Supposedly fourteen copies were made , but Cendrars claimed to have no copies of it , and none could be located during his lifetime . In 1995 , the Bulgarian poet Kiril Kadiiski claimed to have found one of the Russian translations in Sofia , but the authenticity of the document remains contested . In 1907 , Sauser returned to Switzerland , where he studied medicine at the University of Bern e . During this period , he wrote his first verified poems , " Séquences " , influenced by Remy de Gourmont ' s " Le Latin mystique " . Literary career . Cendrars was the first exponent of Modernism in European poetry with his works : The Legend of Novgorode ( 1907 ) , Les Pâques à New York ( 1912 ) , La Prose du Transsibérien et la Petite Jehanne de France ( 1913 ) , Séquences ( 1913 ) , La Guerre au Luxembourg ( 1916 ) , Le Panama ou les aventures de mes sept oncles ( 1918 ) , J ' ai tué ( 1918 ) , and Dix - neuf poèmes élastiques ( 1919 ) . He was the first modernist poet ; not only in terms of expressing the fundamental values of Modernism , but also in terms of creating the first solid poetical synthesis of modernism , in a form of a series of the poems mentioned above . After a short stay in Paris , he traveled to New York , arriving on 11 December 1911 . Between 6 – 8 April 1912 , he wrote his long poem , " Les Pâques à New York " ( Easter in New York ) , his first important contribution to modern literature . He signed it for the first time with the name Blaise Cendrars . In the summer of 1912 , Cendrars returned to Paris , convinced that poetry was his vocation . With Emil Szittya , an anarchist writer , he started the journal " Les hommes nouveaux " , also the name of the press where he published " Les Pâques à New York " and " Séquences " . He became acquainted with the international array of artists and writers in Paris , such as Chagall , Léger , Survage , Modigliani , Csaky , Archipenko , Jean Hugo and Robert Delaunay . Most notably , he encountered Guillaume Apollinaire . The two poets influenced each other ' s work . Cendrars ' poem " Les Pâques à New York " influenced Apollinaire ' s poem " Zone " . Cendrars ' style was based on photographic impressions , themes and reflections in which nostalgia and disillusion were blended with a boundless vision of the world . In 1913 , he expressed this in his lengthy poem " La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France " ( The prose of the Trans - Siberian and of Little Jehanne of France ) , in which he described his world journey . The published work was accompanied by the paintings of Sonia Delaunay - Terk . The long poem , printed on paper two meters in length and folded , he called the first " simultaneous poem " . This was related to Robert Delaunay ' s and other artists ' experiments in proto - abstract expressionism . At the same time Gertrude Stein was beginning to write abstract prose in the manner of Pablo Picasso ' s paintings . Cendrars liked to claim that his poem ' s first printing of one hundred fifty copies would , when unfolded , reach the height of the Eiffel Tower . Cendrars ' relationship with painters such as Chagall and Léger led him to write a series of revolutionary abstract short poems , published in a collection in 1919 under the title " Dix - neuf poèmes élastiques " ( Nineteen elastic poems ) . Some were tributes to his fellow artists . In 1954 , a collaboration between Cendrars and Léger resulted in " Paris , ma ville " ( Paris , my city ) , in which the poet and illustrator together expressed their love of the French capital . As Léger died in 1955 , the book was not published until 1987 . The Left - Handed Poet . His writing career was interrupted by World War I . When it began , he and the Italian writer Ricciotto Canudo appealed to other foreign artists to join the French army . He joined the French Foreign Legion . He was sent to the front line in the Somme where from mid - December 1914 until February 1915 , he was in the line at Frise ( La Grenouillère and Bois de la Vache ) . He described this war experience in the books " La Main coupée " ( The severed hand ) and " J ' ai tué " ( I have killed ) . It was during the attacks in Champagne in September 1915 that Cendrars lost his right arm and was discharged from the army . Jean Cocteau introduced him to Eugenia Errázuriz , who proved a supportive , if at times possessive , patron . Around 1918 he visited her house and was so taken with the simplicity of the décor that he was inspired to write the poems published as " De Outremer à indigo " ( From ultramarine to indigo ) . He stayed with Eugenia in her house in Biarritz , in a room decorated with murals by Picasso . At this time , he drove an old Alfa Romeo which had been colour - coordinated by Georges Braque . Cendrars became an important part of the artistic community in Montparnasse ; his writings were considered a literary epic of the modern adventurer . He was a friend of the American writer Henry Miller , who called him his " great idol , " a man he " really venerated as a writer . " He knew many of the writers , painters , and sculptors living in Paris . In 1918 , his friend Amedeo Modigliani painted his portrait . He was acquainted with Ernest Hemingway , who mentions having seen him " with his broken boxer ' s nose and his pinned - up empty sleeve , rolling a cigarette with his one good hand , " at the Closerie des Lilas in Paris . After the war , Cendrars became involved in the movie industry in Italy , France , and the United States . Needing to generate more income , after 1925 he stopped publishing poetry and concentrated on novels and short stories . Later years . Cendrars continued to be active in the Paris artistic community , encouraging younger artists and writing about them . For instance , he described the Hungarian photographer Ervin Marton as an " ace of white and black photography " in a preface to his exhibition catalogue . He stayed in Paris during World War II and the German occupation . In Occupied France , the Gestapo listed Cendrars as a Jewish writer of " French expression , " but he was not deported . His youngest son was killed in an accident while escorting American planes in Morocco . In 1950 , Cendrars settled down on the rue Jean - Dolent in Paris , across from the La Santé Prison . There he collaborated frequently with Radiodiffusion Française . He finally published again in 1956 . The novel , " Emmène - moi au bout du monde ! … " , was his last work before he suffered a stroke in 1957 . He died in 1961 . His ashes are held at Le Tremblay - sur - Mauldre . Works . Name of the work , year of first edition , publisher ( in Paris if not otherwise noted ) / kind of work / Known translations ( year of first edition in that language )