First published in 1969, Les Chambres was Aragon's last collection. Subtitled ""poeme du temps qui ne passe pas,"" it is a beautiful and melancholy meditation on time, age and love, a last gift to his wife Elsa Triolet who died the following year. Aragon (1897-1982) was one of the most important French poets of the twentieth-century. In the 20s he was a leader of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements in Paris. In the 30s he edited the anti-Fascist journal Commune and the Communist Party newspaper Ce Soir. During the German Occupation he was active in the Resistance. After the War he edited Les Lettres Franaises, was elected to the PCF central committee, and won the Lenin Peace Prize. He wrote over fifty books. Nominated four times for the Nobel Prize, many of his poems have been set to music by musicians, notably George Brassens, Isabelle Aubret, Lo Ferre and Jean Ferrat