Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (1893–1945) was a French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His experience as a soldier during World War I had a deep influence on him. Sympathetic to Dada and to the Surrealists and the Communists, and a close friend of Louis Aragon in the 1920s, he was also interested in the royalist Action Française, but refused to adhere to any one of these political currents. He became a proponent of French fascism in the 1930s, and was a well-known collaborationist during the German occupation. Upon the liberation of Paris in 1944, Drieu had to go into hiding; during this period he committed suicide.