Robert Merle
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born in TébessaTébessa
Tébessa is the capital city of Tébessa Province, Algeria, 20 kilometers west from the border with Tunisia. Nearby is also a phosphate mine. The city is famous for the traditional Algerian carpets in the region, and is home to over 161,440 people.-History:...
in French Algeria
French Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
, he moved to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1918. A professor of English Literature at several universities, during World War II Merle was conscripted in the French army and assigned as an interpreter to the British Expeditionary Force
British Expeditionary Force (World War II)
The British Expeditionary Force was the British force in Europe from 1939–1940 during the Second World War. Commanded by General Lord Gort, the BEF constituted one-tenth of the defending Allied force....
. He ended up in Dunkerque where he was not evacuated but captured by the Germans. Merle used his experiences in his 1949 novel Week-end at Zuydcoote
Week-end at Zuydcoote
Week-end at Zuydcoote is a 1949 novel by French author Robert Merle. It won the 1949 Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize. The novel was adapted to film in 1964 called Weekend at Dunkirk . It was first published in English in 1950....
that won the Prix Goncourt
Prix Goncourt
The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...
. It was filmed in 1964.
He has also written a 13 book series of historical novels, Fortune de France. Recreating 16th and 17th century France through the eyes of a fictitious Protestant doctor turned spy, he went so far as to write it in the period's French making it virtually untranslatable.
His novels Un animal doué de la raison (A Sentient Animal, 1967), a stark Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
inspired by John Lilly
John C. Lilly
John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher and writer....
's studies of dolphins and the Caribbean Crisis, and Malevil
Malevil
Malevil is a 1972 science fiction novel by French writer Robert Merle. It was adapted into a 1981 film directed by Christian de Chalonge and starring Michel Serrault, Jacques Dutronc, Jacques Villeret and Jean-Louis Trintignant .-Plot summary:...
(1972), a post-apocalyptic story, were both translated into English and filmed, the former, in 1973, as The Day of the Dolphin
The Day of the Dolphin
The Day of the Dolphin is a 1973 American science-fiction thriller film directed by Mike Nichols and starring George C. Scott. Loosely based on the 1967 novel, Un animal doué de raison , by French writer Robert Merle, the screenplay was written by Buck Henry.-Plot:A brilliant and driven scientist,...
. It starred George C.Scott and had a screenplay by Buck Henry. It bore very little resemblance to Merle's story.
He died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at his home La Malmaison in Grosrouvre near Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Fortune de France series (1977-2003)
- Fortune de France (1977)
- En nos vertes années (1979)
- Paris ma bonne ville (1980)
- Le prince que voilà (1982)
- La violente amour (1983)
- La Pique du jour (1985)
- La volte des vertugadins (1991)
- L’Enfant-Roi (1993)
- Les Roses de la vie (1995)
- Le Lys et la Pourpre (1997)
- La Gloire et les Périls (1999)
- Complots et Cabales (2001)
- Le glaive et les amours (2003)
