Henri Michaux (1899 – 1984) was a Belgian-born French poet, writer and painter. Michaux is best known for his poetry and prose, especially his texts chronicling his psychedelic experiments with LSD and mescaline which include Miserable Miracle and The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones, as well as his idiosyncratic travelogues and books of art criticism.

In 1930–1931, Henri Michaux visited Japan, China and India. The result of this trip is the book A Barbarian in Asia. Oriental culture became one of his biggest influences. The philosophy of Buddhism, and Oriental calligraphy, later became principal subjects of many of his poems and inspired many of his drawings.

He also traveled to Africa and to the American continent, where he visited Ecuador and published the book Ecuador. His travels across the Americas finished in Brazil in 1939, and he stayed there for two years.

Henri Michaux was also a highly original artist. His work is not quite figurative, but suggestive. The Museum of Modern Art in Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York both had major shows of his work in 1978.

In 1955 he became a citizen of France, and he lived the rest of his life there along with his family. In 1965 he won the National Prize of Literature, which he refused to accept.

Henri Michaux