author
Pétrus Borel
1809–1859
A wild, rebellious voice of French Romanticism, he turned away from architecture to write fierce, eccentric stories and poems that shocked many of his contemporaries. His dark imagination and outsider spirit later helped earn him a reputation as a precursor to Surrealism.
2 Audiobooks
Champavert: contes immoraux
by Pétrus Borel
Madame Putiphar, vol 1 e 2
by Pétrus Borel
About the author
Born in Lyon in 1809, Pétrus Borel studied architecture in Paris before giving it up for literature. He became known in the 1830s as one of the most unconventional young writers of the French Romantic movement, gathering a bohemian circle around him and adopting the striking nickname "le Lycanthrope."
Borel wrote poetry, fiction, criticism, and translations, and he built his reputation on an extravagant, defiant style. His work is often remembered for its gothic energy, satire, and hostility toward bourgeois respectability, qualities that made him stand out even among the Romantics.
Although admired by later readers for his originality, he struggled for recognition in his own lifetime. He died in 1859 in Mostaganem, in present-day Algeria, leaving behind a body of work that still feels intense, strange, and boldly ahead of its time.