Attn: Leto - Tell me about Pierre Boulle!

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Or anyone else, really who can tell me anything about him really.

I've just spotted a collection of short stories by French SF writer Pierre Bouelle in my local used bookstore. All I know about Bouelle is that he write the original novel Planet of the Apes. I am interested in reading SF from outside the Anglophone world and I'd like to know what to expect from Bouelle, maybe who he is most like, what his style and themes are like. Hard SF, classic fare, more 70s-ish New Wave, what?

Thanks.

 

[Leto]

you mean Pierre Boulle ? Are they the "Quia absurdum" (les contes de l'absurde) ?

Well, another novel you may know from him is : The Bridge of the river Kwai.

To describe his work is very hard as, along many other french writers, he wrote in very different categories : Planet of the Apes is a classic tale, his short stories are much in the same vein than Dino Buzzati's K, and River Kwai serie are military tale using his own background in FFL (Free French Forces - De Gaulle's soldiers during WW2). It's certainly not new wave.
Long time I haven't read him, must have been in junior high school in litterature class.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

you mean Pierre Boulle ? Are they the "Quia absurdum" (les contes de l'absurde) ?

Sorry about the spelling - and I think the book I saw is a translation of the title you've mentioned!

 

[Leto]

go ahead them. It's almost impossible to find it here.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Wow. I looove 2nd hand bookshops.