Michel Leiris

Michel Leiris (1901–1990) was a writer, poet, essayist and ethnologist born in Paris. In the 1920s, he became associated first with the Surrealist circle around André Breton and later with Georges Bataille. After studying ethnology from 1933 to 1938, he worked at the Musée de l’Homme until 1971. His major works include Phantom Africa (1934), the novel Aurora and the four-volume autobiographical series The Rules of the Game. Leiris also had a strong interest in jazz, painting, bullfighting and opera, and was an early critic of colonialism and racism.