Anatole France

Anatole France (1844–1924) was a French novelist, critic and essayist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921. Born Jacques Anatole François Thibault, the son of a Paris bookseller, he worked as a librarian and literary journalist before The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard made his name in 1881. Thaïs, The Red Lily, The Gods Are Athirst and the satires Penguin Island and The Revolt of the Angels followed, written in an ironic, skeptical and polished prose. A close friend of Zola, he supported Dreyfus and moved toward socialism in later life. His Life of Joan of Arc, a rationalist biography of the saint, caused controversy on its publication in 1908.