Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches, better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline, was a French novelist, polemicist, and physician. His first novel Journey to the End of the Night (1932) won the Prix Renaudot but divided critics due to the author's pessimistic depiction of the human condition and his writing style based on working-class speech. In subsequent novels such as Death on the Installment Plan (1936), Guignol's Band (1944) and Castle to Castle (1957), Céline further developed an innovative and distinctive literary style. Maurice Nadeau wrote: "What Joyce did for the English language...what the surrealists attempted to do for the French language, Céline achieved effortlessly and on a vast scale."

27 May 1894

Born on the same birth date (27 May 1894): Dashiell Hammett

Born on the same birth day (27 May): Allan Carr • Dan Colchico • Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine • Harry Hibbs (footballer) • Jackie Slater • Jeff Bagwell • Lisa Lopes • Nitin Gadkari • Petroc Trelawny • Piers Courage • Robin Widdows • Tyler Sash • Yoán Moncada

Born in the same month (May 1894): Beatrice Lillie • Benjamin Graham • Chandrashekarendra Saraswati • Dashiell Hammett • Dimitri Tiomkin • Feg Murray • Fred Allen • Friedrich Pollock • Hubertus van Mook • Josef von Sternberg • Joseph Henry Woodger • Martha Graham • Norma Talmadge • Walter Yust • Ásgeir Ásgeirsson