Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1887 – 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European modernist movement. During WWI, he joined the French Foreign Legion and was sent to the front line in the Somme. In September 1915 that Cendrars lost his right arm and was discharged from the army.