Editing Paul Éluard (section)

===Interwar period===
In 1919, Éluard wrote to Gala: "War is coming to an end. We will now fight for happiness after having fought for Life". Waiting to be sent home, he published "Duty and Anxiety" and "Little Poems for Peace". Following the advice of his publisher, he sent the poems to various personalities of the literary world who took a stand against the war. Gala helped him to prepare and send the letters.
In 1919, [[Jean Paulhan]], an eminent academic and writer, responded to his letter expressing his admiration. He referred him to three young writers who had started a new journal called ''Literature''. He encouraged Éluard to go and meet them.

The three young poets Paulhan recommended to Éluard were [[André Breton]], [[Philippe Soupault]], and [[Louis Aragon]].

The meeting with Éluard took place in March 1919. Éluard was intimidated. He was shy and blushing. He was still a soldier and wearing his war uniform. It was the best omen for the three poets, who all showed great courage during the war. Éluard brought with him his poems and read them to the "jury". They were seduced by the young man and liked his work. They decided to publish one of his texts in the next edition of ''[[Littérature]]''.

Wounded and scarred by the war,{{Clarify|date=January 2015}} the four poets found solace in their friendship and poetry. Against a society that wanted to channel them into being good and useful citizens, they chose a life of [[bohemianism|bohemia]]. They refused the [[bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] [[middle class|middle-class]] aspirations of money, respectability, and comfort and rejected its moral codes. They hated politicians and the military or anyone with ambitions of power. They rejected all constraints. Their ideal was freedom and they felt they had already paid the price for it. Revolted and passionate, they were looking for a new ideal, something as far detached as possible from the current political and philosophical programmes. They found solace in the [[Dadaist]] movement, which originated in Switzerland.

In November 1921, Éluard and Gala visited [[Max Ernst]] at his home in [[Cologne]]. Éluard had an immediate and an absolute sympathy for Max. Underneath the charm, Ernst, like Éluard, was a man deeply revolted, in total rupture with society. Unlike Éluard, however, Ernst remained indifferent to propagating this revolt which he considered to be an intimate "elegance".

Éluard and Gala moved to a house just outside Paris and were joined by Max Ernst, who entered France illegally, using Éluard's passport. Jean Paulhan once more helped Éluard by providing Ernst with fake [[identity documents|identity papers]]. Éluard, Ernst, and Gala entered into a [[ménage à trois]] in 1922. Éluard was torn between his love for Gala and his friendship for Ernst. He refused to challenge Gala, and spent his nights in clubs: the Zelli, the Cyrano, the Parrot, and Mitchell. Gala's well-being was still what mattered to him above all and he tried to forget his anxiety by drinking.

Éluard, depressed, wrote "Dying of Not Dying". On 24 March 1924, he disappeared. No one knew where he was. The night before, he had had a worrisome meeting with Louis Aragon, during which Éluard confessed that he wanted to put an end to a present that tortured him. For his friends, he was gone forever. But Éluard wrote to Gala and four months later, she bought a ticket to go and find him and bring him back, locating him in [[Saigon]].

Éluard supported the [[Rif War|Moroccan Revolution]], as early as 1925, and in January 1927, he joined the [[French Communist Party]] together with Aragon, Breton, [[Benjamin Péret]], and [[Pierre Unik]]. All explained their decision in a collective document entitled ''Au grand jour''. It was during these years that Éluard published two of his main works: ''[[Capitale de la douleur]]'' (1926) and ''L'Amour la Poésie'' (1929). Éluard's poetry collection ''L'Évidence Poétique Habitude de la Poésie'' was translated into Arabic and published in the Egyptian magazine ''[[Al Tatawwur]]'' in 1940.<ref name=sam/>

In 1928, he had another bout of tuberculosis and returned to the Clavadel sanatorium with Gala. It was their last winter together. Gala met [[Salvador Dalí]] soon after and remained with him for the rest of her life.