Henri Michaux (French: [miʃo]; 24 May 1899 – 19 October 1984) was a Belgian-born French poet, writer and painter. Michaux is renowned for his strange, highly original poetry and prose, and also for his art: the Paris Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York had major shows of his work in 1978 (see below, Visual Arts). 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, are well known. So are his idiosyncratic travelogues and books of art criticism. Michaux is also known for his stories about Plume – "a peaceful man" – perhaps the most unenterprising hero in the history of literature, and his many misfortunes. In 1955 he became a citizen of France, and he lived the rest of his life there. He became a friend of Romanian pessimist philosopher and French citizen Emil Cioran around the same time. In 1965 he won the grand prix national des Lettres, which he refused to accept, as he did every honor he was accorded in his life.