PIERRE BOULLE

He trained as an engineer, then went to Malaya in 1936 to work as a rubber planter. In 1939 he joined the French army in Indo-China and later the French Resistance in Malaya. he was captured by the japanese during the Second World War, but managed to escape in 1944. After a brief return to the rubber industry Boulle moved back to France where he began to write. Boulle perhaps best known for his novel The bridge on the river Kwai (1952), which drew from his experience of forced labour as a prisoner of war, and Planet of apes (1963), both have been adapted into highly successful films, His many other books include  William Conrad, The Bourreau, E=mc2, Les Vertus de l'enfer, La baleine des Malouines, and À nous deux, Satan!. He was a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance.