André Breton was the only son born to a family of modest means in Tinchebray (Orne) in Normandy, France. His father, Louis-Justin Breton, was a policeman and atheist, and his mother, Marguerite-Marie-Eugénie Le Gouguès, was a former seamstress. Breton attended medical school, where he developed a particular interest in mental illness. His education was interrupted when he was
conscripted for World War I. Vaché committed suicide at age 23, and his war-time letters to Breton and others were published in a volume entitled
Lettres de guerre (1919), for which Breton wrote four introductory essays. Breton married his first wife, Simone Kahn, on 15 September 1921. The couple relocated to rue Fontaine 42 in Paris on 1 January 1922. The apartment on rue Fontaine (in the
Pigalle district) became home to Breton's collection of more than 5,300 items: modern paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, books, art catalogs, journals, manuscripts, and works of popular and Oceanic art. Like his father, he was an atheist.
From Dada to Surrealism Breton launched the review
Littérature in 1919, with
Louis Aragon and
Philippe Soupault. He also associated with
Dadaist
Tristan Tzara. In
Les Champs Magnétiques (
The Magnetic Fields), a collaboration with Soupault, he implemented the principle of
automatic writing. With the publication of his
Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 came the founding of the magazine
La Révolution surréaliste and the
Bureau of Surrealist Research. A group of writers became associated with him: Soupault,
Louis Aragon,
Paul Éluard,
René Crevel,
Michel Leiris,
Benjamin Péret,
Antonin Artaud, and
Robert Desnos. Eager to combine the themes of personal transformation found in the works of
Arthur Rimbaud with the politics of
Karl Marx, Breton and others joined the
French Communist Party in 1927, from which he was expelled in 1933.
Nadja, a novel about his imaginative encounter with a woman who later becomes mentally ill, was published in 1928. Due to the
economic depression, he had to sell his art collection, but he later rebuilt it. In reaction to the
Second Manifesto, writers and artists published in 1930 a collective collection of pamphlets against Breton, entitled (in allusion to an earlier title by Breton)
Un Cadavre. The authors were members of the surrealist movement who were insulted by Breton or had otherwise opposed his leadership. The pamphlet criticized Breton's oversight and influence over the movement. It marked a divide amidst the early surrealists.
Georges Limbour and
Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes commented on the sentence where shooting at random in the crowd is described as the simplest surrealist act. Limbour saw in it an example of buffoonery and shamelessness and Ribemont-Dessaignes called Breton a hypocrite, a cop and a priest. After the publication of this pamphlet against Breton, the
Manifesto had a second edition, where Breton added in a note: "While I say that this act is the simplest, it is clear that my intention is not to recommend it to all merely by virtue of its simplicity; to quarrel with me on this subject is much like a bourgeois asking any non-conformist why he does not commit suicide, or asking a revolutionary why he hasn't moved to the USSR." In 1935, there was a conflict between Breton and the
Soviet writer and journalist
Ilya Ehrenburg during the first International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture, which opened in Paris in June. Breton had been insulted by Ehrenburgalong with all fellow surrealistsin a pamphlet which said, among other things, that surrealists shunned work, favouring
parasitism, and that they endorsed "
onanism,
pederasty,
fetishism,
exhibitionism, and even
sodomy." Breton slapped Ehrenburg several times on the street, which resulted in surrealists being expelled from the Congress.
René Crevel, who according to
Salvador Dalí was "the only serious
communist among surrealists", was isolated from Breton and other surrealists, who were unhappy with Crevel because of his bisexuality and annoyed with communists in general. and Breton escaped, with the help of the American
Varian Fry and
Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV, to the United States and the Caribbean during 1941. He emigrated to New York City and lived there for a few years. Breton collaborated with artist
Wifredo Lam on the publication of Breton's poem "Fata Morgana", which was illustrated by Lam. Breton got to know
Martinican writers
Suzanne Césaire and
Aimé Césaire, and later composed the introduction to the 1947 edition of Aimé Césaire's ''
Cahier d'un retour au pays natal''. During his exile in New York City he met
Elisa Bindhoff, the Chilean woman who became his third wife. Breton's sojourn in Haiti coincided with the overthrow of the country's president,
Élie Lescot, by a radical protest movement. Breton's visit was warmly received by
La Ruche, a youth journal of revolutionary art and politics, which in January 1946 published a talk given by Breton alongside a commentary which Breton described as having "an insurrectional tone". The issue concerned was suppressed by the government, sparking a student strike, and two days later, a general strike: Lescot was toppled a few days later. Among the figures associated with both
La Ruche and the instigation of the revolt were the painter and photographer
Gérald Bloncourt and the writers
René Depestre and
Jacques Stephen Alexis. In subsequent interviews Breton downplayed his personal role in the unrest, stressing that "the misery, and thus, the patience of the Haitian people, were at the breaking point" at the time and stating that "it would be absurd to say that I alone incited the fall of the government".
Michael Löwy has argued that the lectures that Breton gave during his time in Haiti resonated with the youth associated with
La Ruche and the student movement, resulting in them "plac(ing) them as a banner on their journal" and "t(aking) hold of them as they would a weapon". Löwy has identified three themes in Breton's talks which he believes would have struck a particular chord with the audience, namely surrealism's faith in youth, Haiti's revolutionary heritage, and a quote from
Jacques Roumain extolling the revolutionary potential of the Haitian masses.
Later life Breton returned to Paris in 1946, where he opposed
French colonialism (for example as a signatory of the
Manifesto of the 121 against the
Algerian War) and continued, until his death, to foster a second group of surrealists in the form of expositions or reviews (
La Brèche, 1961–65). In 1959, he organized an exhibit in Paris. ==Legacy==