Céline, Louis-Ferdinand

Céline, Louis-Ferdinand

 orig. Louis-Ferdinand Destouches

(born May 27, 1894, Courbevoie, near Paris, France—died July 1, 1961, Meudon) French writer. Céline was born into poverty. In World War I he suffered wounds and shell shock, the mental and physical effects of which lingered throughout his life. From 1924 he practiced medicine. His Journey to the End of Night (1932), about a man's tortured search for meaning, is written in a vehement and disjointed style that marked him as a major innovator. Death on the Installment Plan (1936) is a bleak portrayal of a world bereft of value, beauty, and decency. He thereafter became increasingly conservative, anti-Semitic, and misanthropic. After World War II he fled to Denmark as a suspected Nazi collaborator, but he was later exonerated. His works include the trilogy Castle to Castle (1957), North (1960), and Rigadoon (1969).