Lionel Ray

Lionel Ray is a French poet and essayist. He published three collections under his real name (Robert Lorho) in his twenties, and in 1965 he was awarded the Prix Guillaume Apollinaire, France’s most prestigious award for young poets. He adopted his current pseudonym in 1970 upon the publication of a series of poems written in a radically new style, which were fêted by Louis Aragon. He has since become one of France’s preeminent poets, receiving the Prix Goncourt de la Poésie and the Prix de la Société des Gens de Lettres, among many other awards. The poems translated her are taken from his 1993 collection Comme un château défait.