Profession: writer

Breton, Aragon and Soupault together founded the magazine ‘Littérature’ (the title was meant provocatively). Apollinaire introduced Breton to Soupault, and Breton introduced Soupault to Aragon. Soupault contributed to Richter and Mies van der Rohe’s magazine ‘G’, collaborated with Breton on a work based on automatic writing, sent a poem to and was painted by Delaunay, and played hide and seek with Tzara at an exhibition of Max Ernst’s work. Soupault admired Joyce hugely – they sat together in the front row at the theatre because of Joyce’s near-blindness. Padgett noted that Cendrars (gregarious) and Reverdy (solitary) had served as Soupault’s mentors.

Rushdie, a close friend, said Auster brought a European sensibility to American subject-matter. Calle intrigued Auster, and asked him to invent a character which she would attempt to resemble (he had previously, without knowing her, based a fictional artist character on her). Carey got to know him when he moved to New York. Auster made two films with Wang, but didn’t like the direction one of them took, and the friendship suffered. As a young writer, he interviewed Jabès, but admiring him greatly, was comprehensively awestruck.

Arnaud, seemingly a man for all counter-cultural or experimentalist persuasions, knew Queneau, Le Lionnais and Mathews through Oulipo and through pataphysical circles. Jorn and Dotremont were friends through his association with the CoBrA group. He was a friend and biographer of Vian, a situationist colleague of Debord, and collaborated on books with Jorn and with Dubuffet.

Algren invited Mailer to sit in on a writing class, while Calder brought him to a pioneering writers’ conference in Edinburgh. Leone asked him to write a screenplay but concluded he wasn’t a cinematic writer. He got Trocchi false papers so he could re-enter Britain. Vidal claimed he hit him with his fist: Mailer said it was a tumbler of ice (they continued to get along, though with bouts of bad blood). He met Moore at a boxing-match, and joined Lowell to march against the Vietnam war. Probably the strongest and fondest of his literary friendships was with Baldwin, written about by Baldwin in a notable essay.