Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of French writer and doctor Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961). The name "Céline" was chosen after his grandmother's first name. Céline is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and World literature. He remains, however, a controversial figure because of extreme anti-Semitic statements publish...
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Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of French writer and doctor Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961). The name "Céline" was chosen after his grandmother's first name. Céline is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and World literature. He remains, however, a controversial figure because of extreme anti-Semitic statements published during 1937 and the Second World War.
The only child of Ferdinand-Auguste Destouches and Marguerite-Louise-Céline Guilloux, he was born Louis-Ferdinand Destouches in 1894 at Courbevoie, just outside Paris in the Seine département (now Hauts-de-Seine). His father was a minor functionary in an insurance firm and his mother was a lacemaker. During 1905 he was awarded his Certificat d'études, after which he began working as an apprentice and messenger boy in various trades. Between 1908 and 1910 his parents sent him to Germany and England for a...
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