247 - LEIRIS (Michel), 1901–1990.

LEIRIS (Michel), 1901–1990. P.A.S. “Michel Leiris"", undated, December 21, 1952, 1 folio-sized page on letterhead reading “People’s Congress for Peace / Vienna 1952,” spiral-bound perforations on the left margin, upper half sun-faded. With an autograph note at the top: “Peace and friendship to Hervé Bazin!” dated and signed “ML.” On the back, an autograph note by Hervé Bazin: “Memories of the Congress and the ‘famous lunch’ in Vienna (1952): Leiris, Sartre, Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Pichette, Mrs. Sun Yat-sen, Pablo Neruda, Fernand Léger, Hervé Bazin, Ilya Ehrenburg.” Leiris first recalls the Christmases of his childhood, the nativity scene at Notre-Dame d’Auteuil, the ox and the donkey, the shepherds and the Three Wise Men, “including Balthazar the Black,” then the wonder of the toys discovered in the fireplace. This childhood mythology finds its counterpart in Vienna in a new human community: during the Congress, he writes, he was merely “one of those shepherds, shepherdesses, and Magi of all races and countries, gathered to proclaim to the world, if not the good news, then at least their desire for good news.” Leiris describes the enthusiasm this collective experience brought him: “We were all together; every hope was permitted, and a boundless future was taking shape on the foundation of abolished barriers.” Finally, he ironically recalls the “highly bureaucratic request” through which he had applied to participate—even “as an ox or a donkey”—in this congress toward which “so many shepherds and Magi” were converging. In 1953, Michel Leiris published a text titled “Congress of Peoples for Peace: Vienna 1952,” illustrated by Fernand Léger and published in *Défense de la paix*, No. 23, in April 1953.