Saint-John Perse

Saint-John Perse was born in Guadeloupe in 1887 (pseudonym of Alexis Saint-Leger Leger). He studied at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris and joined the French diplomatic service in 1914. From 1932 to 1940 he served as Secretary-General at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from which he was dismissed because of his stance against Nazi Germany. He went into self-imposed exile in the USA in 1941. Under his pen name, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960. His poetic works include, among others, ‘The Ascent’, ‘Chronicle’ and ‘Snows’. He died in 1975 in Paris.