Boris Vian

Boris Vian was born 10 March 1920 in France and moved between identities with ease. As Vernon Sullivan he cranked out lurid parodies of American crime fiction that sparked obscenity charges for their raw content. Under his real name he built stranger, softer worlds - Froth on the Daydream among them - where language warped and surrealism carried the plot. Beyond the page he brokered the French jazz scene, liaising for Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, writing for Le Jazz Hot and Paris Jazz, tracking the music on both sides of the Atlantic. His own songs found an audience too, especially the anti-war piece "Le Déserteur." He died 23 June 1959, forty-nine weeks short of forty.