author
Henri Murger
1822–1861
Best known for the book that helped define bohemian Paris, he turned the struggles of young artists into stories that still echo through opera and literature. His vivid, semi-autobiographical sketches inspired Puccini's La bohème and fixed the image of the starving artist in the public imagination.
6 Audiobooks
Scènes de la vie de Bohème
by Henri Murger
Bohemians of the Latin Quarter
by Henri Murger
Scènes de la vie de jeunesse: Nouvelles
by Henri Murger
Propos de ville et propos de théâtre
by Henri Murger
Boheemielämää
by Henri Murger
Kunstenaarsleven te Parijs: Roman uit het Bohème-leven
by Henri Murger
About the author
Born in Paris on March 27, 1822, Henri Murger grew up in modest circumstances and left school young. He moved among poor writers, painters, and musicians in the Latin Quarter, drawing directly on that world in his work.
His most famous book, Scènes de la vie de bohème (published in 1851), portrayed the friendships, hunger, humor, and heartbreak of bohemian life with unusual immediacy. Though often called a novel, it is made up of linked scenes, and its lasting influence reached far beyond French literature through later stage and operatic adaptations, especially Puccini's La bohème.
Murger died in Paris on January 28, 1861, at just 38. His reputation rests above all on how memorably he captured a life lived on the edge of poverty but full of artistic ambition, wit, and feeling.