Photo: Louis MONIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (1990)
Sample of authors
Japrisot, Sébastien
Pseudonym for the French author, translator and filmmaker Jean-Baptiste Rossi who was born in Marseille to Italian parents. After his father left the family, Japrisot was educated at a Jesuit school and then read philosophy at Sorbonne. He was an intelligent, but rebellious student prone to skipping lectures. At the age of sixteen, he began his debut novel, The False Start (1950, Les mal...
Literary figures
Philo Vance
Gender: Male
Conceited and garrulous but with a very good all-round education, he is an amateur detective featured in a dozen orthodox whodunnits by S.S. Van Dine (pseudonym for Willard Huntington Wright). Philo Vance come from a ‘fine’ family, is well educated, very rich, mainly spends his time collecting art etc. and writing scientific articles in various subjects. He is of average height, slim, elegant, wit...