Jacques Rigaut was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 surrealist poet. Born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, he was part of the Dada

Dada

Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...

ist movement. His works frequently talked about suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 and he came to regard its successful completion as his occupation. In 1929 at the age of 30, as he had announced, Rigaut shot himself, using a ruler to be sure the bullet would pass through his heart.

He is buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre.

Rigaut's works include:

• Agence Générale du Suicide
• Et puis merde!
• Papiers Posthumes
• Lord Patchogue

His suicide inspired the book Le Feu Follet by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle

Pierre Drieu La Rochelle

Pierre Eugène Drieu La Rochelle was a French writer of novels, short stories and political essays, who lived and died in Paris...

. The movie The Fire Within

The Fire Within

The Fire Within is a 1963 French drama film directed by Louis Malle. It is based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The film stars Maurice Ronet as Alain Leroy, a recovering alcoholic at a rehabilitation clinic in Versailles who has depression...

from Louis Malle

Louis Malle

Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...

 is based on this book.

Sources

• 4 Dada Suicides: Selected Texts of Arthur Cravan, Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma & Jacques Vache (Anti-Classics of Dada) by Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma
  Julien Torma
  Julien Torma was a French writer, playwright and poet who was part of the Dadaist movement. He was born in Cambrai, France, and died in Tyrol....
  
  , Jacques Vache
  Jacques Vaché
  Jacques Vaché was a friend of André Breton, the founder of surrealism. Vaché was one of the chief inspirations behind the Surrealist movement. As Breton said:...
  
  , and Arthur Cravan
  Arthur Cravan
  Arthur Cravan was known as a pugilist, a poet, a larger-than-life character, and an idol of the Dada and Surrealism movements. He was the second son of Otho Holland Lloyd and Hélène Clara St. Clair of Armenian desent. His brother, Otho, was born in 1885...
  
  . Roger Conover
  Roger Conover
  Roger Conover is a senior commissioning editor at The MIT Press with responsibility to the art-and-architecture list. He has been in-post since 1977.-References:...
  
   (Editor), Terry J. Hale (Editor), Paul Lenti (Editor), Iain White (Editor). (1995) Atlas Press
  Atlas Press
  Atlas Press began publishing in 1983, and specialises in extremist and avant-garde prose writing from the 1890s to the present day. Atlas Press is the largest publisher in English of books on Surrealism and has an extensive list relating to Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, the Oulipo, the Collège...
  
   ISBN 0-947757-74-0

• Jacques Rigaut, portrait tiré Laurent Cirelli (1998) Dilettante publishers ISBN 2-84263-016-5 (French language)