Larbaud, Valery

(1881-1957)

   writer

   Born in Vichy, Valery Larbaud, after 1898, made long journeys throughout Europe and became like Barnabooth, the hero of his stories, "without horizons." In 1935, he developed aphasia, causing loss of speech, and he ended his life paralyzed. in 1911, his novel on the theme of adolescence, Fermina Marquez, appeared, which previews some of the themes in A. O. Barnabooth. Ses œuvres completes, c'est-a-dire un conte, ses poesies et son journal intime (1913) and Amants, heureux amants (1920-1924). In 1924, Larbaud dedicated himself to literary criticism (Ce vice impuni, la lecture; 1941), and translations, making the works of Walt Whitman, Samuel Butler, and James Joyce (he helped in the translation of Ulysses, a work from which he borrowed the idea of the interior monologue) more familiar to the French. Laubaud collected his writings, essays, and notes on his travels in Jaune, bleu, blanc (1928) and in Aux couleurs de Rome (1938).