Blaise Cendrars – a restless travel writer

Blaise Cendrars’ Prose of the Trans-Siberian and the Little Jeanne de France was published a century ago. It was a journey around the world and in the mind.

Blaise Cendrars has now found his place among the literary greats after his works have been included in France’s prestigious Pléiade library collection. Born Frédéric-Louis Sauser in the western Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1887, Cendrars became restless at the age of 17. He said that his choice for going East was the result of a throw of the dice; he might just as well have gone West. He moved to Russia’s far east, to Vladivostok. Then he travelled around a lot to the most improbable corners of the Earth – and he wrote a lot. He died in Paris in 1961. What’s left are his books, his photographs… and his voice.