Background
Her father was a middle class functionary of Lebanese extraction. A divorce ensued, and the child (who was told his mother had died) was raised in a series of boarding schools and orphanages in America.
Her father was a middle class functionary of Lebanese extraction. A divorce ensued, and the child (who was told his mother had died) was raised in a series of boarding schools and orphanages in America.
Her older brother, René Tasso (1897–1920), was also a poet of distinction who, however, died at the young age of twenty-two from tuberculosis. Celine was the eldest of four girls, and lived her entire life in Alexandria, Egypt, leaving only for brief trips to the United States (once), Lebanon (generally to visit her son"s family), and France. At the age of sixteen Celine married George Salm (Salem), a wealthy landowner twice her age.
They had one child, Joseph.
Because Mr. Salm had become an American citizen, the Egyptian government sued to expropriate his extensive landholdings. The American government funded Salm"s defense, with the signature of President Herbert Hoover.
The case, known as the Salem Claim, went to international arbitration in Vienna, Austria in 1931. The American side lost and Salm was dispossessed of all his Egyptian property.
In the final decades of her life, Celine Axelos retired from society and became increasingly introspective, relying on her deep Christian faith.
"The ugliness of the world," she wrote in a letter, "has become odious to medical ." She wrote of seeking "a spiritual ascension, the source of all true happiness." Foreign many years the poet lived quietly in a small ninth-floor apartment on a busy Alexandria street, as her faithful maid of forty years, Sophie, brought food daily and did the housecleaning.