Benjamin Péret

Benjamin Péret (1899–1959) was a Surrealist’s Surrealist, audaciously baroque and incessantly irreverent, a founding member of the Surrealist movement and its only member besides André Breton to remain a Surrealist to the end. He was Salvador Dalí’s favorite poet, an inspiration to Luis Buñuel, and a major influence on Octavio Paz. Péret fought in the Spanish Civil War as a member of the Durutti Column, but also fought every literary current he came up against in his lifetime. He was a fierce antinationalist, a true revolutionary, and a lifelong insulter of priests.