Elsa Triolet

Biography

Elsa Triolet (born Ella Yuryevna Kagan; (Russian: Элла Юрьевна Каган); 24 September [O.S. 12 September] 1896 – 16 June 1970) was a Russian-French writer and translator.

Ella Yuryevna Kagan was born into a Jewish family of Yuri Alexandrovich Kagan, a lawyer, and Yelena Youlevna Berman, a music teacher, in Moscow. She and her older sister Lilya Brik received excellent educations; they were able to speak fluent German and French and play the piano. Ella graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture.

Ella soon became associated with the Russian Futurists via Lilya, who was in 1912 married to the art critic Osip Brik; she befriended people of their circle, including Roman Jakobson, then a...