La mécanique des femmes

Louis Calaferte

Louis Calaferte was an Italian-born French naturalized novelist. He was born in Turin, Italy, but emigrated to France with his parents when he was very young, settling in a Lyon suburb where he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence. In 1947, he set out for Paris to pursue his dream of becoming an actor, where he found a love for writing instead. Over the span of his career, he published a variety of works, including “a fantastic profusion of novels, short stories, essays, plays, poems and erotica of a particularly distinguished vulgarity that created genuine excitement in the most blase connoisseur”. This writing style resulted in a variety of literary prizes, including the Prix de l’Academie Française for Ebauche d’un autoportrait in 1983; for a collection of poems, Londoniennes in 1985; and for a collection of short stories, Promenades dans un parc in 1987. Calaferte died in Dijon, France on 2 May 1994.