Before completing his studies in a Jesuit college, Jean-Paul Clébert left to join the French Resistance in 1943 at the age of 16.
I have never had a regular job but have been successively a house painter, cook, newspaper seller, farm worker, navvy undertaker’s mute, valet, cafe proprietor and tramp.
[3] An illustrated edition with photos of Patrice Molinard (who debuted as a stills photographer on Georges Franju's documentary le Sang des bêtes) and layout by Massin was published in 1954.
The three frequented Chez Fraysse on Rue de Seine in Saint-Germain-des-Prés with Doisneau, not far from Clébert’s other haunt Chez Moineau, the dirt-cheap refuge of bohemian youths and of Guy Debord, Michele Bernstein, Gil J. Wolman, Ivan Chtcheglov and the other members of the Lettrist International, and which was the subject of Ed van der Elsken’s photo-romain Love on the Left Bank (1956).
Clébert retreated from urban life in 1956 to the mountainous Luberon region of Provence, in which he discovered abandoned stone villages, and took up residence there without running water or electricity, before moving in 1968 to Oppède-le-Vieux.
[12] In 1973, Clébert's novel The Blockhouse was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Clive Rees, starring Peter Sellers and Charles Aznavour.