Henri Troyat

French writer

Henri Troyat, born Levon Aslan Torossian or Lev Aslanovich Tarasov, (November 1, 1911March 2, 2007[1]) was a French author, biographer, historian and novelist. Originally, his family was from Armenia.

He was born in Moscow. His family fled Russia, because they feared the coming revolution. After a long exile, the family settled in Paris in 1920, where young Troyat was schooled and later earned a law degree.

He won his first literary award at the age of 24, "le prix du Roman populaire". At the age of 27 he was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt.

He published more than 100 books, novels and biographies, among them those of Anton Chekhov, Catherine the Great, Rasputin, Ivan the Terrible and Leo Tolstoy. He was at his death the dean of the Académie française.

His best-known work is La neige en deuil, which was adapted as an English-language movie in 1956 under the title The Mountain.

References change

  1. Académie française: Latest news. Some sources report that he died on 4 March 2007.