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René Crevel (French:[kʁəvɛl]; 10 August 1900 – 18 June 1935) was a French writer involved with the surrealistmovement.
Crevel was born in Paris to a family of Parisian bourgeoisie. He had a traumatic religious upbringing. At the age of fourteen, his father committed suicide by hanging himself.
Crevel studied literature and law at the University of Paris. He met Tristan Tzara and joined the Dada movement as early as 1923 (Crevel would play the "Eye" character in Tzara's play Le Coeur à Barbe, in July 1923), then got closer to André Breton and the Surrealists. During the 1923/1924 winter, a love affair between Crevel and American artist Eugene McCown began. Through McCown, Crevel mingled with a chic bohemian crowd and got to know Nancy Cunard, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Caresse and Harry Crosby, and others.
From 1924, Crevel wrote novels such as Détours and Mon Corps et moi ("My Body and Me") where he would extensively write about his fears, his revolt and his feeling of malaise. In 1926 was published La Mort difficile ("Difficult Death"), a novel where he depicts his lover McCown as "Arthur Bruggle". The publication ended their love affair, though Crevel would be close to McCown till the end of his life.
Also in 1924, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis which caused him to frequently leave Paris for sanatoriums, especially in Switzerland. The 1929 exile of Leon Trotsky persuaded him to rejoin the surrealists. Remaining faithful to Breton, he struggled to bring communists and surrealists closer together. In 1928, during a short stay in Berlin, he met Carl Sternheim's daughter, Dorothea, with whom he fell in love. Much of Crevel's work deals with his involvement as a communist and his inner turmoil at being bisexual.[1]
クレヴェルは、1935年6月18日の夜、35歳の誕生日の数週間前に、台所のガスコンロの火をつけて自殺した。これは、彼が最初に出版した本[ 2 ]で説明したのと全く同じ方法だった。少なくとも2つの直接的な理由があった。(1) 1935年6月にパリで開かれた第1回「文化擁護のための国際作家会議」で、ブルトンとイリヤ・エーレンブルグの間で対立があった。他のすべてのシュルレアリストと同様に、シュルレアリストは小児性愛者であるなどと書かれたパンフレットでエーレンブルグに侮辱されたブルトンは、路上でエーレンブルグを数回平手打ちし、その結果、シュルレアリストは会議から追放された。サルバドール・ダリによれば「シュルレアリストの中で唯一の真面目な共産主義者」であったクレヴェル[ 3 ]は、他の代表者たちにシュルレアリストの復帰を認めるよう説得しようと丸一日を費やしたが、成功せず、完全に疲れ果てて午後11時に大会を去った。クレヴェルは大会を去る際に、腎結核を患っていることを知ったと言われている[ 4 ] 。彼は「私の遺体を火葬してください。嫌悪」と書かれたメモを残した。
1925年にブルトンが『シュルレアリスム革命』創刊号で「自殺：それは解決策か？」という問いを投げかけた際、クレヴェルは「はい」と答えた一人だった。彼は「明らかに最も公平で決定的な解決策は、自殺である」と書いた。
