Philippe Soupault (French, 1897 - 1990) was a poet, novelist, actor, political activist and professor. He was introduced to André Breton by Guillaume Apollinaire, who published his poetry collection Aquarium in 1917. He and Breton, along with Louis Aragon, co-founded Littérature in 1919, and within its pages published Les Champs magnétiques, the first work of automatic writing co-authored by Breton and Soupault. Together they initiated the Surrealist movement, leaving the nihilism of Dada behind. In 1926, Soupault was expelled from Surrealism by Breton for "recognizing value in purely literary activity" (publishing novels). During World War II, after a six month imprisonment by the Vichy regime for his activity in Tunis, he fled to the United States and worked as a professor at Swarthmore College until 1945, when he returned to France.