Portal:Literature/Biography archive/2007, Week 16

Anatole France (April 16, 1844 – October 12, 1924) was the pen name of French author Jacques Anatole François Thibault. He was born in Paris, France, and died in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France. Anatole France became known after the publication of Le crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881) where he looked back at the 18th century as a golden age. Its protagonist, skeptical old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, embodied France's own personality. The novel was praised for its elegant prose and won him a prize from the French Academy. In La rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque (1893) Anatole France ridiculed belief in the occult; and in Les opinions de Jerome Coignard (1893), France captures the atmosphere of the fin de siècle.