Exodus is the work of Benjamin Fondane (1898–1944) a poet, critic and filmmaker of Rumanian Jewish extraction and a naturalized French citizen. In 1940, Fondane joined the French army only to find himself taken prisoner, to escape, and be taken prisoner again. He was eventually hospitalized and released after the Armistice. Although friends offered assistance and encouraged him to leave, Fondane chose to stay in Paris where he lived in an apart ment with his wife near the Pantheon. There he completed Exodus, a manuscript begun in 1934. In 1944 he was denounced on account of his Jewish heritage, held at the Drancy transfer camp and then sent Auschwitz where he died.


Born as Benjamin Wechsler or Wexler to a family of Jewish heritage, he published poetry after 1912 under the pen name of B. Fundoianu or Barbu Fundoianu (he is still known by them in Romania) in such magazines as Rampa and Hatikvah. In 1918, he authored the drama Tagaduinta lui Petru.

After unfinished law studies at the University of Iasi, he left for Bucharest in 1919, and became the center of an avant-garde group which also included Marcel Iancu, M. H. Maxy, Iosif Ross, Sasa Pana, Ion Vinea, Stefan Roll and Ilarie Voronca. He published frequently in major periodicals such as Contimporanul, Adevarul literar si artistic, and Sburatorul, and formed a short-lived (1921-1923) theatrical company named Insula ("The Island"), influenced by the views of Jacques Copeau.

After moving to Paris in 1923, Fondane wrote his first French language poem, Exercice de français, in 1925. He met Tristan Tzara in 1927, interviewing him for the Integral magazine (for which he was the French-section editor), and affiliated himself with Surrealism, publishing notable poems, such as A Madame Sonia Delaunay, part of his unfinished Projet Ulysse 1927. He then adhered to the subgroup around Arthur Adamov and his Discontinuité paper. Fondane became close to such figures as Shestov, Martin Buber, Constantin Brancusi, and Victoria Ocampo (whom he visited in Argentina in 1929).
In 1933, he worked with Dimitri Kirsanoff on the experimental film Rapt, a free screen adaptation of La séparation des races, the novel by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz. He wrote and directed the Argentinian film Tararira in 1936.

In 1940, Fondane was drafted upon Nazi Germany's invasion of France. Taken prisoner, managing to escape, and recaptured, he was hospitalized at the Val de Grâce for an appendicectomy. After regaining his house, Fondane started work on Projet Ulysse and several essays.

In March 1944, he was arrested by Vichy France policemen and held in the Drancy camp, until being deported to Auschwitz on May 30. He was killed in the infamous gas chamber.