Part of the Surrealist group in Paris, Leiris became a key member of the College of Sociology with Georges Bataille and head of research in ethnography at the CNRS.

[2] Michel Leiris obtained his baccalauréat in philosophy at the Lycée Janson de Sailly in 1918 and after a brief attempt at studying chemistry, he developed a strong interest in jazz and poetry.

As a member of Jean-Paul Sartre's editorial committee for Les Temps modernes,[9] Leiris was involved in a series of political struggles, including the Algerian War, and was one of the first to sign the Déclaration sur le droit à l'insoumission dans la guerre d'Algérie,[10] the 1960 manifesto supporting the fight against the colonial forces in Algeria.

(Centre national de la recherche scientifique) and published numerous critical texts[11] on artists he admired, including Francis Bacon, a close friend for whom he had modeled.

In the preface to Haut Mal, suivi de Autres Lancers (Gallimard 1969) he is quoted as saying that "the practice of poetry enables us to posit the Other as an equal" and that poetic inspiration is "a very rare thing, a fleeting gift from Heaven, to which the poet needs to be, at the price of an absolute purity, receptive – and to pay with his unhappiness for the benefits derived from this blessing."