Jacques Prevel was born on 21 July 1915 in the Norman town of Bolbec, and moved to Le Havre at the age of eighteen. He married, and through his wife obtained a post as a copywriter in the municipal administration. In 1942 he moved to occupied Paris, where he befriended Arthur Adamov, Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, and then fatefully, on 27 May 1946, Antonin Artaud. He self-published three short collections of poetry. He died alone in Room 109 of the sanatorium at Sainte-Feyre on 27 May 1951, five years to the day after his first encounter with Artaud. He was buried at Bolbec on 1 June of the same year.