Romain Gary was born Roman Kacew in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). He grew up in Vilna and later in Warsaw, Poland, with family. In 1925, his father abandoned his family and remarried, and Kacew moved with his mother to Nice, France. He studied law, first in Aix-en-Provence and later in Paris. In World War II he became a pilot in the French Air Force. When the Nazis invaded and occupied France, he fled to England, changed his name to Romain Gary, and served with the Free French Forces in Europe and North Africa and was highly decorated for his bravery in the war (Compagnon de la Libération, Légion d'Honneur).
After the war, he worked in the French diplomatic service and married his first wife, author and journalist Lesley Blanch. His first novel, "Education européenne" (A European Education), was published in 1945. In 1952, he became secretary of the French Delegation to the United Nations in New York, and later in London. In 1956, he became Consul General of France in Los Angeles. He divorced Lesley Blanch in 1961 and married American actress Jean Seberg in 1962. He wrote the screenplay for the film "The Roots of Heaven" in 1958 and went on to direct two films, "Les oiseaux vont mourir au Pérou" in 1968 and "Kill!" in 1971, which starred his ex-wife Seberg, whom he had divorced in 1970. In 1979 Seberg committed suicide, and Gary followed her in 1980.
Over the course of his career he had written more than 30 novels, and had become one of France's most popular and prolific writers. In addition to writing under his own name, he wrote under the pseudonyms of Émile Ajar, Shatan Bogat, Rene Deville and Fosco Sinibaldi.
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Subjects
Fiction, Fiction, general, Biography, French Authors, French fiction, World War, 1939-1945, Authors, French, Children's fiction, Anarchists, Authors, biography, Autobiographical fiction, Biographies, Catalogs, Concentration camp inmates, Criticism and interpretation, Description and travel, Dictators, Elephants, Engraving, European Engraving, FICTION / Historical, FICTION / Literary, Fiction, historical, France, fiction, French Science fictionPlaces
Chad, France, Geneva (Switzerland), Latin America, Middle East, Normandy (France), Red Sea RegionTime
20th centuryID Numbers
- OLID: OL123692A
- ISNI: 0000000121264468
- VIAF: 30780842
- Wikidata: Q157322
- Inventaire.io: wd:Q157322
Links (outside Open Library)
Alternative names
- Émile Ajar
- Shatan Bogat
- Fosco Sinibaldi
- Rene Deville
December 13, 2021 | Edited by dcapillae | remove wrong alternative names |
December 13, 2021 | Edited by dcapillae | merge authors |
September 30, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | add ISNI |
March 31, 2017 | Edited by MARC Bot | add VIAF and wikidata ID |
April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | initial import |