Boris vian He was born in 1920 in Ville d'Avray, a suburb of Paris. He was a prolific and always controversial author: besides being a writer, poet, and translator, he was an engineer, singer, and jazz musician. He associated with the existentialist intellectuals of the time and, in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, met, among others, Ellington, Davis, and Parker. He earned his engineering degree in 1942 and a year later wrote his first novels. Trouble dans les Andains y Vercoquin and plankton.

Vian authored a dozen literary works, the lyrics for hundreds of songs, and several opera librettos. Among his literary works are: The foam of the days (L'écume des tours, 1946), The ants (The ants, 1949), Red grass (L'herbe rouge, 1950), The heart ripper (L'arrache-cœur ,1953) or The Wolf-Man (The wolf-garou), a series of short stories he wrote between 1945 and 1952.

He died in 1959 before turning forty, while he was at the preview of the film adaptation of his novel I will spit on your grave (I'll go spit on your graves, 1946), a work critical of the living conditions of the black American race.