Pierre Boulle -French Novelist

Pierre Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French novelist largely known for two famous works, The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963).

Boulle served as a secret agent under the name Peter John Rule and helped the resistance movement in China, Burma, and French Indochina. In 1943, he was captured by the Vichy France loyalists on the Mekong River and was subjected to severe hardship and forced labour. He was later made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur and decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance. He described his experiences in the war in the non-fiction My Own River Kwai. After the war he would keep in touch with his war comrades for the rest of his life.

For a while after the war, Boulle returned to work in the rubber industry, but in 1949 he moved back to Paris and began to write. While in Paris, too poor to afford his own flat, he lived in a hotel until his recently widowed sister Madeleine allowed him to move into her large apartment. She had a daughter whom Pierre helped raise, but plans for him to officially adopt the girl never materialized. He could never bring himself to leave this family and form another one.

While in Paris, Boulle used his war experiences in writing Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (1952; The Bridge over the River Kwai), which became a multi-million-copy worldwide bestseller, winning the French "Prix Sainte-Beuve". The book was a semi-fictional story based on the real plight ofAllied POWs forced to build a 415-km (258-mile) railway that passed over the bridge, and which became known as the "Death Railway". 16,000 prisoners and 100,000 Asian conscripts died during construction of the line. His character of Lt-Col. Nicholson was not based on the real Allied senior officer at the Kwai bridges, Philip Toosey, but was reportedly an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers.

In 1963, following several other reasonably successful novels, Pierre Boulle published his other famous novel, Planet of the Apes. The novel was highly praised and given such reviews as this example from England's Guardian newspaper; "Classic science fiction...full of suspense and satirical intelligence." In the year 2500 a group of astronauts, including journalist Ulysse Merou, voyage to a planet in the star system ofBetelgeuse. They land to discover a bizarre world where intelligent apes are the Master Race and humans are reduced to savages: caged in zoos, used in laboratory experiments and hunted for sport. The story of Ulysse's capture, his struggle to survive, and the shattering climax as he uncovers the horrific truth about the 'planet of the apes' is gripping and fantastic. Yet the novel is also a wry parable on science, evolution and the relationship between man and animal."

He had never married, due in large part to the fact that he had decided to take care of his sister and raise his niece as his own daughter.

Pierre Boulle died in Paris, France on 30 January 1994, at age 82