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Elsa Triolet. Portrait by Rodchenko.

Elsa Yur'evna Triolet (September 12 (or September 24) 1896 - June 16, 1970) was a French writer, a wife of Louis Aragon and a sister of Lilya Brik.

Born Elsa Kagan (Russian: Эльза Каган) into a Jewish family of a lawyer and a music teacher in Moscow, both sisters received excellent education and were able to speak fluent German and French and play the piano. Elsa graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture.

Elsa enjoyed poetry and in 1915 befriended an aspiring futurist poet and graphic artist Vladimir Mayakovsky. When she invited him home, the poet fell madly in love with her older sister Lilya, who was married to Osip Brik.

In 1918, at the outset of Russian Civil War, Elsa married French cavalry officer André Triolet and emigrated to France, but for years in her letters to Lilya Elsa admitted of being heartbroken. She was the first to translate Mayakovsky's poetry (as well as volumes of other Russian-language poetry) to French language. Later she divorced Triolet.

In the early 1920s, Elsa described her visit to Tahiti in her letters to Victor Shklovsky, who subsequently showed them to Maxim Gorky. Gorky suggested that the author should consider a literary career. The 1925 book In Tahiti, written in Russian, was based on these letters.

In 1928 Elsa met French writer Louis Aragon. They married and stayed together for 42 years. She influenced Aragon to join French Communist Party.

Triolet and Aragon participated in French anti-fascist resistance movement. In 1944, she was awarded Prix Goncourt, the first time a woman received this most prestigious prize in French literature.

She died, aged 73, in Moulin de Saint-Arnoult, France of a heart attack.

• На Таити (In Tahiti, in Russian, 1925)
• Fraise des bois (in Russian, 1926)
• Camouflage (in Russian, 1928)
• Bonsoir Thérèse (Good Evening, Theresa - her first book in French, 1938)
• Mille regrets (1942)
• Le Cheval blanc (The White Horse, 1943)
• Qui est cet étranger qui n'est pas d'ici ? ou le mythe de la Baronne Mélanie (1944)
• Le Premier accroc coûte deux cents francs (A Fine of 200 Francs, 1945, Prix Goncourt 1944)
• Personne ne m'aime (Nobody Loves Me, 1946)
• Les Fantômes armés (The Phantom Armies, 1947)
• L'Inspecteur des ruines (The Inspector of Ruins, 1948)
• Le Cheval roux ou les intentions humaines (1953)
• L'Histoire d'Anton Tchekov (1954)
• Le Rendez-vous des étrangers (1956)
• Le Monument (1957)
• Roses à crédit (1959)
• Luna-Park (1960)
• Les Manigances (1961)
• L'Âme (1962)
• Le Grand jamais (1965)
• Écoutez-voir (1968)
• La Mise en mots (1969)
• Le Rossignol se tait à l'aube (1970)

• Elsa Triolet at the Internet Movie Database