The first name in the title of Salvador Dalí’s 1948 memoir The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí is Salvador.
The book is one of Dalí’s most famous autobiographical works. Its full title presents the artist in the third person and combines recollections, self-mythologizing, anecdotes, and accounts of his artistic development. Dalí’s memoir is therefore both a source about his life and an example of the flamboyant public persona he deliberately constructed.
The book was published in English in 1948 in a translation by Haakan Chevalier, following the original French edition. It covers Dalí’s childhood, education, relationships, artistic ambitions, and rise within the Surrealist movement.
Readers should distinguish this memoir from The Diary of a Genius, published in 1965, and from The Secret Life’s earlier publication history. The 1948 English edition is the version most often cited in English-language references.