This is the first full-length biography, and the first to appear in England, of Elsa Triolet (1896-1970), novelist, first woman to win the Prix Goncourt, French Resistance heroine and wife of Louis Aragon,(founder of the surrealist movement and political activist). Elsa's multiple lives are recreated here: from her early life in Russia, to life in Tahiti with her first husband, the sporting dandy Andre Triolet; the strange emigre world of Berlin in the '20s surrounded by artists, Dadaists and surrealists; and finally life in Paris with Louis Aragon whom she met in 1928 and married in 1939. The author also describes Louis Aragon's extraordinary childhood, his previous affair with Nancy Cunard, and his important friendship with Andre Breton. Elsa and Aragon were active in the French Resistance and after the war became Stalinists. This biography brings alive the history of intellectual and artistic life in Europe, and Paris in particular, from the 1920s to the 1970s. Lachlan Mackinnon is a poet and critic who reviews regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and has also published works of literary criticism.