1. Jean de La Fontaine (1621)

French Writer

Seventeenth-century French poet and fabulist who is best known for his Contes and Fables. He also published a 1669 novel entitled Les amours de Psyche et de Cupidon.

2. Charles Perrault (1628)

French Writer

French author who wrote the classic fairy tales Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. He is best known for his 1697 work, Tales of Mother Goose.

3. Théophile Gautier (1811)

French Writer

French poet, author, and critic who was associated with the Romantic and Parnassian literary movements. His poetic works include Albertus, La Comedie de la Mort, and Emaux et Camees.

4. Stéphane Mallarmé (1842)

French Writer

French symbolist poet whose best-known works include L'apres-midi d'un faune and Les Mots anglais.

5. Alexandre Bisson (1848)

French Writer

French playwright most recognized for pioneering French vaudeville. He wrote the three-act comedy Un Voyage d'agrément, in 1881.

6. Michel Verne (1861)

French Writer

The son of legendary adventure novelist Jules Verne, he oversaw the publication of his father's late novels and wrote several works of his own. Michel Verne's published works include La...

7. Gaston Leroux (1868)

French Writer

French mystery author who wrote The Phantom of the Opera (1910), which was later adapted into several stage and film productions. His other works include The Mystery of the Yellow...

8. Pierre Louÿs (1870)

French Writer

Influential French poet associated with the symbolism movement and known for erotic literary works featuring lesbian themes. His works include La Femme et le pantin (The Woman and the Puppet)...

9. Alfred Jarry (1873)

French Writer

French playwright and pataphysicist who is most famous for his play Ubu Roi, which is associated with the Surrealist and Futurist movements.

10. Guillaume Apollinaire (1880)

French Writer

Italian-born, French-language poet, author, and playwright associated with the surrealist movement. His best-known works include Calligrammes (poems), Les Mamelles de Tiresias (play), and Les Epingles (stories).

11. André Breton (1896)

French Writer

Remembered for such twentieth-century works as L'Amour Fou (Mad Love), Nadja, and Manifeste du Surrealisme (Surrealist Manifesto), this fiction and nonfiction writer and poet is credited with having founded the...

12. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900)

French Writer

French poet, author, and aviator who is best remembered for his classic novella Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). He received both the Grand Prix du roman de l'Academie francaise...

13. Jean Follain (1903)

French Writer

A French author, poet, lawyer, and 1970 recipient of the French Grand Prize in Poetry, he is known for such poetic works as Usage du temps, Exister, and Death of...

14. Eugène Ionesco (1909)

French Writer

Absurdist Romanian playwright who wrote Rhinoceros, Exit the King, and The Bald Soprano. He wrote most of his pieces in French.

15. Henri Troyat (1911)

French Writer

Acclaimed fiction writer, biographer, and historian whose more than 100 French-language works include L’Araigne, Les Ponts de Paris, and La Neige en deuil.

16. Pierre Boulle (1912)

French Writer

Best remembered for his 1963 science fiction novel The Planet of the Apes, he also penned the 1952 bestseller The Bridge over the River Kwai. His lesser-known works include Garden...

17. Claude Simon (1913)

French Writer

An influential French writer, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1985. His best-known works include La Route des Flandres (1960) and Histoire (1967).

18. Anne Golon (1921)

French Writer

A Twentieth-century French author, she is best known for her Angelique books, which are set in the time of Louis XIV. She became known to her English readers as Sergeanne...

19. Michel Henry (1922)

French Writer

French philosopher, novelist, and professor whose works were based on Phenomenology.

20. Éric Zemmour (1958)

French Writer

A French writer and political journalist, he is best known for his controversial Figaro magazine column. A staunch anti-liberal on economic issues and an anti-racist and anti-feminist, he refused to...

21. Patrick Modiano (1945)

French Writer

Most famous for his Prix Goncourt-winning novel Rue des Boutiques Obscures (English title: Missing Person) and for his Grand Prix du Roman-winning book Les Boulevards de Ceinture (Ring Roads), Modiano...

22. Émile Zola (1840)

French Writer

French novelist and journalist known for being the leading thinker in the naturalist literary movement that was popular during the late 19th century. He is also remembered for having written the...

23. Bernard Werber (1961)

French Writer

Successful French science fiction writer whose work is read around the globe. He is best known for his Les Fourmis book trilogy.

24. Guillaume Musso (1974)

French Writer

Known for such popular works as Afterwards..., Girl on Paper, and Call from an Angel, this French author became one of his country's top two bestselling writers of 2009. By...

25. Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (1960)

French Writer

Famous for both his plays and his novels, this French-Belgian author penned such award-winning scripts as Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran and Golden Joe and such novels as...

26. Ann Scott (1965)

French Writer

Known for such postmodern, social realist novels as Héroïne (published in 2005) and the extremely popular Superstars (published in 2000), this French fiction writer also penned several short stories and...

27. Mikael Bodlore-Penlaez (1975)

French Writer

Mikael Bodlore-Penlaez is a Breton author and cartographer. He has edited with Divi Kervella the first bilingual Atlas of Brittany who has received several awards including the Brittany's Prize of...

28. Colette de Jouvenel (1913)

French Writer

Colette de Jouvenel also known as Bel-Gazou July 1913 - 1981 was the daughter of French writer Colette and her second husband Henri de Jouvenel. She was the half-sister of...

29. Christiane Rochefort (1917)

French Writer

Christiane Rochefort was a French feminist writer. She was born into a left-wing working class Parisian family; her father joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Rochefort worked...

30. Roger Borniche (1919)

French Writer

Roger Borniche was a French detective of the Sûreté nationale and author of a number of works. He started as a singer but his fledgling musical career was interrupted by...

31. Albert Memmi (1920)

French Writer

Albert Memmi is a French writer and essayist of Tunisian-Jewish origin.

32. Lucette Finas (1921)

French Writer

Lucette Finas is a French author and essayist part of the structuralist movement. She has published several articles relating interviews with French scholars and philosophers in the 1970s like writers...

33. Gilles Leroy (1958)

French Writer

Gilles Leroy is a French writer. He studied at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux which appears in his 1996 novel Les Maîtres du monde as the Lycée Ducasse. His novel...

34. Madeleine Chapsal (1925)

French Writer

Madeleine Chapsal is a French authorDaughter of the politician Fernand Chapsal and of the Madeleine Vionnet dressmaker Marcelle Chaumont. She was married to the French journalist and politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber...

35. Jérôme Peignot (1926)

French Writer

Jérôme Peignot is a French novelist poet pamphleteer and an expert in typography. The author of some thirty books he was awarded the Prix Sainte-Beuve took part in publishing the...

36. Olivier Weber (Unknow)

French Writer

Olivier Weber is an award-winning French writer novelist and reporter at large known primarily for his coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been a war correspondent...

37. Georges-Jean Arnaud (1928)

French Writer

Georges-Jean Arnaud is a French author.

38. Jacques Réda (1929)

French Writer

Jacques Réda is a French poet jazz critic and flâneur. He was chief editor of the Nouvelle Revue Française from 1987 to 1996.

39. Jean-Michel Iribarren (1958)

French Writer

Jean-Michel Iribarren is a French author. He is the author of L'insecte a monologue in which the AIDS virus speaks and the author denounces the silence that surrounded the death...

40. Frédérick Tristan (1931)

French Writer

Tristan is a French writer.

41. Charles Juliet (Unknow)

French Writer

Charles Juliet born on 30 September 1934 in Jujurieux in Ain is a French poet playwright and novelist. He won the 2013 Prix Goncourt de la Poésie. His works have...

42. René Victor Pilhes (1934)

French Writer

René Victor Pilhes is a French writer and former publicist born in 1934. Pilhes began working as an advertising executive at Air France then at Publicis as Creative Director and...

43. Claire Etcherelli (Unknow)

French Writer

Claire Etcherelli is a French novelist who has won Femina Prize * for her novel Elise or the real life *

44. David Rousset (Unknow)

French Writer

David Rousset was a French writer and political activist a recipient of Prix Renaudot a French literary award. Survivor of the Neuengamme concentration camp and the Buchenwald National Socialist German...

45. Charles Longuet (Unknow)

French Writer

Charles Longuet was a journalist and prominent figure in the French working-class movement including the 1871 Paris Commune as well as a Proudhonist member of the General Council of the...

46. Alexandre Chatrian (1826)

French Writer

Alexandre Chatrian was a French writer associated with the region of Alsace-Lorraine. Almost all of his works were written jointly with Émile Erckmann under the name Erckmann-Chatrian.

47. Édouard Charton (Unknow)

French Writer

Édouard Charton was an eminent French literary figure who was the founder and for fifty-five years editor-in-chief of the publication Magasin pittoresque in addition to serving for thirty years as...

48. Saint-René Taillandier (1817)

French Writer

Saint-René Taillandier was a French writer and critic. Taillandier was born René Gaspard Ernest Taillandier in Paris. He completed his studies in Heidelberg and then became professor of literature successively...

49. Ivan Levaï (1937)

French Writer

Ivan Levaï is a journalist in France. He has occupied many positions in radio television and press journalism. For several years he presented the review of the press in the...

50. Gérard Klein (Unknow)

French Writer

Gérard Klein known also as Gilles d'Argyre is a French science fiction writer with sociological training. He is the editor of the prestigious science fiction series Ailleurs et Demain published...