Profession: writer

Hughes, Wright and Ellison were among the writers who befriended Himes when, fresh out of prison, he arrived in New York; Ellison had formerly been in the same class at university as Himes. Wright (by then, the doyen of expatriate black American writers in Paris), welcomed Himes when he moved to Paris, and helped him in many ways. Baldwin, as well as Ellison, was among his colleagues in France. Duhamel, met fortuitously, commissioned, translated and published Himes’ detective stories in his ‘Série noire.’ Himes and his wife fed Van Peebles “for weeks and weeks” in Paris.

Piron is known for his epigrams and comedic monologues. Crébillon, Rameau and Boucher were fellow-members of a singing club: Rameau and he wrote a comic opera together. Voltaire, whom Piron saw as a rival, quarrelled with him, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau was a friend, while Jean-Jacques Rousseau visited to mark his (Piron’s) 80th birthday. His proposed election to the Académie Française (a body he took not wholly seriously) was stymied on the unearthing of an early erotic verse, put to music by Rameau.

Trocchi was taught by Morgan in Glasgow, met Beckett in Paris, and was his first publisher in English. His journal ‘Merlin’ also published work by Sartre, Logue, Neruda, Creeley, Éluard, Ayer, Hikmet and Miller. Cocteau reputedly introduced him to hard drugs. Debord wrote “almost amicably” to ‘resign’ him from the Situationist International (Jorn was a fellow-member), then wrote again annulling it. He met Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg and Corso in Paris, as well as his friend Southern and good friend Burroughs. Laing introduced Leary to heroin at Trocchi’s, while he himself (fleeing New York) overdosed Cohen on opium.

Julian Huxley was his brother, Ward his aunt and literary godmother, and Orwell briefly a pupil. He met Lawrence, Russell, Strachey, Mansfield, Sassoon, Graves, Fry, Woolf and Bell while working as a high-class labourer during WWl; Fry (he said) extended his education, while Lawrence became a close friend. Krishnamurti was both friend and strong influence, Isherwood collaborated on screenplays, Hubble was a confidant, while his fluent French led to his friendship with Stravinsky. Osmond introduced him to mescalin and Leary to LSD, which he took on his deathbed. Woolf described him as a gigantic grasshopper.