Triolet, Elsa

(1896-1970)

   novelist

   of Russian origin, Elsa Triolet was born in Moscow. The sister-in-law of vladimir Mayakovsky (for whom she translated a volume, Vers et Prose), she was encouraged to write by Maxim Gorky. After a trip to Tahiti, then to Berlin (with her first husband, André Triolet), she met, in Paris (1928), louis aragon and became his companion and muse. Since her first work in French, bonsoir Thérèse (1938), Triolet wrote numerous published pieces, "in dialogue" with those of Aragon (Œuvres romanesques croisées, 1964). In her novels, she sought to understand man and his issues (Le premier Accroc coûte deux cents francs, 1944, a collection of short stories filled with the adventures of the resistance), as she does in other works with the same quest (Le Cheval blanc, 1943). Very much of the 20th century and written in the style of socialist realism, in which the image of the capitalist world seems to justify the revolution, L'Âge de Nylon reveals the author's concern with the fascination that the modern mechanized world holds for many (Roses à crédit, 1959), and also her confidence and wonder at the progressive developments of science (Luna-Park, 1959), but above all her sense of the mysterious nature of the human soul (L'Âme, 1963). This mystery of humankind is again the theme in Troi-let's Le Grand Jamais (1963), a reflection on historical truth, time, love, and death that will be echoed in Aragon's La Mise à mort (1965).