When Guillaume Apollinaire was sent to the trenches during World War I, he had already published his groundbreaking book of poems, Alcools, inspiring artists of the budding Surrealist movement and making a foundational mark on twentieth-century literature. The letters he sent to his fiancée Madeleine Pagès while fighting on the front in Champagne offer an unprecedented look into the life and mind of this literary great. Ranging from memories of his childhood in Rome with his mother (a Polish noblewoman) to his reflections on literary giants like Racine and Tolstoy, the letters also chronicle his daily life as a soldier in the brutal Great War. Letters to Madeleine is a moving portrait of a poet facing one of humanity’s starkest realities, and it will be of interest not only to fans of Apollinaire but to those interested in personal accounts of the First World War as well.
 

Translated by: Donald Nicholson-Smith