When he was a student at the École Normale Supérieure, Roger Caillois (1913-1978) came into contact with André Breton and during the same period became friends with Salvador Dalí, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, and René Char, among others. But he broke away from the surrealist group in 1934. In 1938, Caillois was the co-founder of the Collège de Sociologie, with Georges Bataille and Michel Leiris. He met the woman of letters Victoria Ocampo, who invited him to stay at her house in Argentina during World War II. He later directed the French Institute of Buenos Aires, before starting the magazine Les Lettres françaises.
Upon his return to France, he managed the Croix du Sud collection at Gallimard, specialising in South American literature, including authors such as Neruda or Asturias, and translated the fantastical novels of Jorge Luis Borges.
A poet and essayist, Roger Caillois published a prolix body of work: his books are about war, dreams, poetry, myths and imagination...
