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
Hercule Poirot
Gender: Male
The Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot worked for the Belgian police until Agatha Christie transferred him to England. Poirot is characterised by his vanity, his strong French accent, his egg-shaped head and his impressive moustache, and he solves crime in a string of classic whodunits. Poirot eventually became so famous that The Times published an obituary when Christie killed him off in...