The French poet and diplomat, Saint-John Perse (1887-1975) ranks among the greatest French poets of the 20th century. His work is epic in nature, characterized by a cosmic vision and a lofty rhetoric. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960.

Saint-John Perse was born Alexis Saint-Léger Léger on a family-owned island near Guadeloupe in the West Indies on May 31, 1887. At the age of 11 he went to the southern French city of Pau, where he attended school. He then studied at the University of Bordeaux and subsequently traveled extensively before establishing himself in Paris to prepare for the Foreign Service exams. He was accepted by the French Foreign Service in 1914 and spent the years from 1916 to 1921 in China. During the 1920s and 1930s he was again in Paris, rising in the service to the rank of secretary general. His brilliant diplomatic career ended in...