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Elsa Triolet

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Elsa Triolet. Portrait by Rodchenko.
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Elsa Triolet. Portrait by Rodchenko.
Elsa Triolet (September 12 (24) 1896 - June 16 1970) was a French writer, a wife of Louis Aragon and a sister of Lilya Brik. 

Born Elsa Kagan (Russian: ) into a Jewish family of a lawyer and a music teacher in Moscow, both sisters received excellent education and were able to speak fluent German and French and play the piano. Elsa graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture.

Elsa enjoyed poetry and in 1915 befriended an aspiring futurist poet and graphic artist Vladimir Mayakovsky. When she invited him home, the poet fell madly in love with her older sister Lilya, who was married to Osip Brik.

In 1918, at the outset of Russian Civil War, Elsa married French cavalry officer André Triolet and emigrated to France, but for years in her letters to Lilya Elsa admitted of being heartbroken. She was the first to translate Mayakovsky's poetry (as well as volumes of other Russian-language poetry) to French language. Later she divorced Triolet.

In the early 1920s, Elsa described her visit to Tahiti in her letters to Victor Shklovsky, who subsequently showed them to Maxim Gorky. Gorky suggested that the author should consider a literary career. The 1925 book In Tahiti, written in Russian, was based on these letters.

In 1928 Elsa met French writer Louis Aragon. They married and stayed together for 42 years. She influenced Aragon to join French Communist Party.

Triolet and Aragon participated in French anti-fascist resistance movement. In 1944, she was awarded Prix Goncourt, the first time a woman received this most prestigious prize in French literature.

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