The first poems by Desnos to appear in print were published in 1917 in
La Tribune des Jeunes (Platform for Youth) and in 1919 in the
avant-garde review ''Le Trait d'union
(Hyphen), and also the same year in the Dadaist magazine Littérature''. In 1922 he published his first book, a collection of surrealistic aphorisms, with the title
Rrose Sélavy (the name adopted as an "alternative persona" by the avant-garde French artist
Marcel Duchamp; a pun on "Eros, c'est la vie"). In 1919 he met the poet
Benjamin Péret, who introduced him to the Paris
Dada group and
André Breton, with whom he soon became friends. In 1920, he did his military service which led him to
Chaumont and then Morocco. While working as a literary columnist for
Paris-Soir, Desnos was an active member of the Surrealist group and developed a particular talent for
automatic writing. He, together with writers such as
Louis Aragon and
Paul Éluard, would form the literary vanguard of surrealism. André Breton included two photographs of Desnos sleeping in his surrealist novel
Nadja. Although he was praised by Breton in his 1924
Manifeste du Surréalisme for being the movement's "prophet", Desnos disagreed with Surrealism's involvement in
communist politics, which caused a rift between him and Breton. Desnos continued work as a columnist. In 1926 he composed
The Night of Loveless Nights, a lyric poem dealing with
solitude curiously written in classic
quatrains, which makes it more like
Baudelaire than Breton. It was illustrated by his close friend and fellow surrealist
Georges Malkine. Desnos fell in love with
Yvonne George, a singer whose obsessed fans made his love impossible. He wrote several poems for her, as well as the erotic surrealist novel ''La liberté ou l'amour!
(1927). Critic Ray Keenoy describes La liberté ou l'amour!'' as "literary and lyrical in its outpourings of sexual delirium". By 1929 Breton definitively condemned Desnos, who in turn joined
Georges Bataille and
Documents, as one of the authors to sign
Un Cadavre (A Corpse) attacking "le bœuf Breton" (Breton the ox or Breton the oaf). He wrote articles on "Modern Imagery", "Avant-garde Cinema" (1929, issue 7), "Pygmalion and the Sphinx" (1930, issue 1), and
Sergei Eisenstein, the
Soviet filmmaker, on his film titled
The General Line (1930, issue 4). His career in radio began in 1932 with a show dedicated to
Fantômas. During that time, he became friends with
Picasso,
Hemingway,
Artaud and
John Dos Passos; published many critical reviews on
jazz and
cinema; and became increasingly involved in politics. He wrote for many periodicals, including
Littérature,
La Révolution surréaliste and
Variétés. Besides his numerous collections of poems, he published three novels,
Deuil pour deuil (1924), ''La Liberté ou l'amour!
(1927) and Le vin est tiré
(1943); a play, La Place de l'étoile
(1928; revised 1944); and a film script, L'Étoile de mer'' (1928), which was directed by
Man Ray that same year. ==Resistance and deportation==