Pierre BenoitPierre Benoit (July 16, 1886 – March 3, 1962) was a French novelist, screenwriter, and Académie française member. He is most known for his second novel, L'Atlantide (1919), which has been adapted for film multiple times. Pierre Benoit was the son of French soldier and was born in Albi (southern France). Benoit spent his childhood and military service in Northern Africa before going on to become a civil servant and librarian. He published his first collection of poems in 1914. He then joined the French army and was hospitalized and demobilized following the Battle of Charleroi. His debut novel, Koenigsmark, was published in 1918; the following year, L'Atlantide was published and won the Grand Prize of the Académie française, of which he became a member in 1931. Benoit was dispatched to Turkey as a journalist for Le Journal in 1923, and he afterwards traveled to other countries. Many of his writings, including La Châtelaine du Liban, were adapted into films during this decade. Benoit, a political right-winger, admired Maurice Barrès and Charles Maurras. During the Nazi occupation of France, Benoît became a member of the "Groupe Collaboration," a pro-Nazi artistic organization that comprised Abel Bonnard, Georges Claude, and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. This resulted in his imprisonment in September 1944; he was eventually released after six months, but his work was kept on the "blacklist" of French Nazi collaborators for several years afterwards. Read More Read Less