Louis-Ferdinand C�line (French: [selin] (About this sound listen)) was the pen name

of Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (pronounced [detu?]; 27 May 1894 � 1 July

1961), a French novelist, pamphleteer and physician. He developed a new style of
writing that modernized French literature. His most famous work is the 1932 novel,
Journey to the End of the Night.

C�line used a working-class, spoken style of language in his writings, and attacked
what he considered to be the overly polished, "bourgeois" language of the
"academy". His works influenced a broad array of literary figures, not only in
France but also in the English-speaking world and elsewhere in the Western World;
this includes authors associated with modernism, existentialism, black comedy and
the Beat Generation.

However, C�line's vocal support for the Axis powers during the Second World War and
his authorship of some offensively antisemitic pamphlets, has meant that his legacy
as a cultural icon is a tangled one.

The only child of Fernand Destouches and Marguerite-Louise-C�line Guilloux, he was

born Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches in 1894 at Courbevoie, just outside Paris
in the Seine d�partement (now Hauts-de-Seine). The family came originally from
Normandy on his father's side and Brittany on his mother's side. His father was a
middle manager in an insurance company and his mother owned a boutique where she
sold antique lace.[1][2] In 1905 he was awarded his Certificat d'�tudes, after
which he worked as an apprentice and messenger boy in various trades.[2] Between
1908 and 1910 his parents sent him to Germany and England for a year in each
country in order to acquire foreign languages for future employment.[2] From the
time he left school until the age of eighteen C�line worked in various jobs,
leaving or losing them after only short periods of time. He often found himself
working for jewellers, first, at eleven, as an errand boy, and later as a
salesperson for a local goldsmith. Although he was no longer being formally
educated, he bought schoolbooks with the money he earned, and studied by himself.
It was around this time that C�line started to want to become a doctor.[3]

In 1912, in what C�line described as an act of rebellion against his parents he

joined the French army, two years before the start of the First World War and its
mandatory French conscription. This was a time in France when, following the
Moroccan crisis of 1911, nationalism reached "fever pitch" � a period one historian
described as "The Hegemony of Patriotism" (1911�1914), particularly affecting
opinion in the lyc�es and grandes �coles of Paris.[4]

In 1912, C�line began a three-year enlistment in the 12th Cuirassier Regiment

stationed in Rambouillet.[2] At first he was unhappy with military life, and even
considered deserting. However, he adapted, and eventually attained the rank of
Sergeant.[5] The beginning of the First World War brought action to C�line's unit.
On 25 October 1914, C�line volunteered to deliver a message, when others were
reluctant to do so because of heavy German fire. Near Ypres, during his attempt to
deliver the message, he was wounded in his right arm. (He was not wounded in the
head, contrary to a popular rumor that he perpetuated.)[6] For his bravery, C�line
was awarded the m�daille militaire in November, and appeared one year later in the
weekly l'Illustr� National (November 1915, p16).[2]

In March 1915, he was sent to London to work in the French passport office. While
in London he married Suzanne Nebout but they divorced one year later.[2] In
September, his arm wounds were such that he was declared unfit for military duty
and was discharged. He returned to France, where he began working at a variety of
jobs.

In 1916, C�line set out for Africa as a representative of the Sangha-Oubangui

company. He was sent to the Cameroons and returned to France in 1917.[2] Little is
known about this trip except that it was unsuccessful.[7] After returning to France
he worked for the Rockefeller Foundation: as part of a team it was his job to
travel to Brittany teaching people how to fight tuberculosis and improve hygiene.
[8]