Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), author of "Ubu Roi" and "The Supermale," was a major influence on countless creators, from Apollinaire, Duchamp, and Artaud to Joyce, Queneau, and Ionesco. According to Andre Breton, "literature, starting with Jarry, dangerously shifts into slippery territories... And again, starting with him, the distinction between art and life was questioned until it was completely obliterated." Born into an upper-middle-class family from Laval, France, Jarry sketched the character of Père Ubu at the age of eighteen, when he moved to Paris and joined the literary circles that included Guillaume Apollinaire, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gertrude Stein, and others. As one of the most significant figures of the Parisian avant-garde, Alfred Jarry died in 1907 at the age of thirty-seven, already famous for his radical writing and anarchic lifestyle.