Benoist at the 1927 French Grand Prix

Robert Marcel Charles Benoist (20 March 1895 – 9 September 1944) was a French Grand Prix motor racing driver and war hero.

Early life[link]

Born near Rambouillet, Île-de-France, France, Robert Benoist was the son of Baron Henri de Rothschild's gamekeeper. As a young man, Benoist served during World War I in the French infantry, then as a fighter pilot in the new Armée de l'Air and ultimately as a flying instructor.

Grand Prix Driver[link]

Looking for excitement in the post-war world, Benoist joined the de Marçay car company as a test driver. He then moved on to Salmson and was very successful in cyclecar races before being signed to drive for Delage in 1924. The next year, teamed with Albert Divo, he won the French Grand Prix in the race that claimed the life of Italian racing star Antonio Ascari.

In 1927, driving a Delage 15-S-8, he won the French, Spanish, Italian and British Grand Prix races, earning the season championship title for the French manufacturer.

Benoist at the 1926 San Sebastián Grand Prix

When the Delage company dropped out of racing, Robert Benoist was without a job and was appointed manager of the Banville Garage in Paris. He did occasional races for the Bugatti team, finishing second in the 1928 San Sebastián Grand Prix in Spain. The following year he teamed up with Attilio Marinoni to win the Spa 24 Hours race in Belgium, driving an Alfa Romeo. At the end of the season he retired until 1934, when he made a comeback with the Bugatti team. He was soon made head of the competition department and masterminded the company's Le Mans programme. In 1937 he partnered with Jean-Pierre Wimille to win the 24 hours of Le Mans^[1] endurance race. Following that victory, Benoist retired permanently, but continued to run Bugatti's racing department until called up into the French Air Force.

World War II[link]

In addition to Jean-Pierre Wimille, Robert Benoist became good friends with another Grand Prix driver, William Grover-Williams.^[2] When World War II broke out and France was occupied, these three race drivers all escaped to England where they joined the Special Operations Executive as secret agents^[3] to return to France to assist the French Resistance. Benoist was commissioned into the British Army as a captain.^[4] Parachuted into France, Benoist helped organize sabotage cells and with William Grover-Williams moved weapons from air-drops in the Rambouillet forest to his home at Auffargis for storage and distribution.

In June 1943, the "Prosper" network in Paris collapsed and its leaders, Francis Suttill and Andrée Borrel, were arrested by the Gestapo. In August, Benoist's home was raided by the Gestapo and Grover-Williams was captured and executed with Francis Suttill at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Capture and escape[link]

Three days later, Robert Benoist was apprehended in Paris. While being driven to Gestapo headquarters, Benoist leaped from the moving vehicle and escaped,^[3] eventually being smuggled back to England via the underground.

New missions[link]

Benoist would later return to France on a second mission, lasting from October 1943 to February 1944, after which he returned to London for a short time before going back to France in March to work in the Nantes area with fellow SOE agent Denise Bloch.

Robert Benoist was arrested on 18 June 1944 and shipped to Buchenwald concentration camp where he was executed three months later, on 11 September.

Testimony[link]

Following Germany's surrender, on 9 September 1945, the "Coupe Robert Benoist" automobile race was held in Paris in his memory.

Captain Robert Benoist is recorded on the Brookwood Memorial in Surrey, England and as one of the SOE agents who died for the liberation of France, he is listed on the "Roll of Honor" on the Valençay SOE Memorial in the town of Valençay, in the Indre departement of France.

In his honor, the village of Auffargis named a street after him and it is there in the churchyard cemetery on "Allée Robert Benoist" that fellow pioneer race driver, Ferenc Szisz is buried. Among the remaining grandstands still standing at the former Reims-Gueux circuit in France is one named "Tribune Robert Benoist".

Bibliography[link]

• Au volant: Cours pratique de conduite automobile, Bernard-Précy, Robert Benoist, Paris, Ed. Tallandier 1933
• Foot, MRD: SOE in France (HMSO, London 1966)
• Ryan Robert: Early One Morning, Headline 2002 ISBN 0-7472-6872-X
• Pernod Alain: Grand Prix de France, un si�cle en histoires, ed. ETAI, 2006, ISBN 2-7268-8657-4
• Saward, Joe: "The Grand Prix Saboteurs", Morienval Press, London, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9554868-0-7
• Motor Sport, August 1945, Page 156.

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robert Benoist

Christophe Robert (born March 30, 1964 in Montpon-Ménestérol) is a former footballer from France.

He is famous for having been involved in the bribery scandal involving Olympique de Marseille and his team US Valenciennes. He ^[1] and teammates, Jorge Burruchaga^[2] and Jacques Glassman^[2] were contacted by OM player Jean-Jacques Eydelie,^[3] in order to let l'OM win and, more importantly, not to injure any OM player ahead of the UEFA Champions League final.

He was then suspended for 2 seasons by the French Football Federation.^[4]

External links[link]

• Profile
• Profile

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For the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War units, see Louise Michel Battalions

Louise Michel
Born	(1830-05-29)29 May 1830 Haute-Marne, France
Died	9 January 1905(1905-01-09) (aged 74) Marseille, France

Louise Michel (1830–1905) was a French anarchist, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre. Journalist Brian Doherty has called her "[t]he French grande dame of anarchy."^[1]

Part of the Politics series on
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Biography[link]

Louise Michel was born at the Château of Vroncourt (Haute-Marne) on 29 May 1830, the daughter of a serving-maid, Marianne Michel, and the daughter of the châtelain, Etienne Charles Demahis.

She was brought up by her father's parents and received a liberal education. After her grandfather's death in 1850 she was trained to teach, but her refusal to acknowledge Napoleon III prevented her from serving in a state school. She became violently anti-Bonapartist, and is even said to have contemplated the assassination of Napoleon III. In 1866 she found her way to a school in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, where she threw herself ardently into works of charity and revolutionary politics.

Paris[link]

Michel in uniform.

She was active during the Paris Commune as an ambulance woman and treated those injured on the barricades. During the Siege of Paris she untiringly preached resistance against the Prussians. On the establishment of the Commune, she joined the National Guard. She offered to shoot Thiers, and suggested the destruction of Paris by way of vengeance for its surrender.

She was with the Communards who made their last stand in the cemetery of Montmartre, and was closely allied with Théophile Ferré, who was executed in November 1871. Michel dedicated a moving farewell poem to Ferré, l’œillet rouge (The Red Carnation). It is without a doubt that upon learning of this loss, Victor Hugo dedicated his poem Viro Major to Michel. This ardent attachment was perhaps one of the sources of the exaltation which marked her career, and gave many handles to her enemies.

In December 1871, she was brought before the 6th council of war, charged with offences including trying to overthrow the government, encouraging citizens to arm themselves, and herself using weapons and wearing a military uniform. Defiantly, she vowed to never renounce the Commune, and dared the judges to sentence her to death.^[2] Reportedly, Michel told the court, “Since it seems that every heart that beats for freedom has no right to anything but a little slug of lead, I demand my share. If you let me live, I shall never cease to cry for vengeance.” ^[3]

She spent twenty months in prison and was sentenced to deportation. It was at this time that the Versailles press gave her the name la Louve rouge, la Bonne Louise (the red she-wolf, the good Louise).

The text of the L’œillet rouge"^[4] is as follows:^[5]

If were to go to the black cemetery

Brothers, throw on your sister,

As a final hope,

Some red 'carnations' in bloom.

In the final days of Empire,

When the people were awakening,

It was your smile red carnation

which told us that all was being reborn.

Today, go blossom in the shadow of the black and sad prisons.

Go, bloom near the somber captive,

And tell him/her truly that we love him/her.

Tell that through fleeting time

Everything belongs to the future

That the livid-browed conqueror

can die more surely than the conquered.

Deportation[link]

She was loaded onto the ship Virginie on the 8th of August, 1873,^[2] to be deported to New Caledonia where she arrived 4 months later. Whilst on board, she became acquainted with Henri Rochefort, a famous polemicist, who became her friend until her death. She also met Nathalie Lemel, another figure active in the commune. Most likely, it was this latter contact that led Louise to become an anarchist. She remained in New Caledonia for seven years, refusing special treatment reserved for women. Befriending the local kanaks, she attempted to educate them and, unlike others in the commune, took their side in their 1878 revolt. She is even said to have sent the ringleader of the rebellion Ataï a piece of her scarf.

The following year, she received authorisation to become a teacher in Noumea for the children of the deported — among them many Kabyles (Kabyles du Pacifique) from Cheikh Mokrani's rebellion (1871) — and later in schools for girls.

Return to France[link]

Louise Michel at home in France during her later years.

Michel returned to Paris in 1880, after amnesty was granted to the Communards. Her revolutionary passion undiminished, she gave a public address on the 21st of November, 1880.^[2] She continued her revolutionary activity in Europe, attending the anarchist congress in London in 1881, where she led demonstrations, spoke to huge crowds, and headed a libertarian school.

She travelled throughout France, preaching revolution, and in 1883 she led a Paris mob which pillaged a baker's shop. For this she was condemned to six years imprisonment, but was released in 1886, at the same time as Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists. After a short period of freedom she was again arrested for making inflammatory speeches. She was soon liberated, but, hearing that her enemies hoped to intern her in a lunatic asylum, she fled to England in 1890. She returned to France in 1895, taking part in the agitation provoked by the Dreyfuss affair in 1898, and from this time forward, she split up her time between conferences and stays with friends in London.

She was stopped many times during demonstrations, and was again incarcerated for six years, but eventually freed after three years thanks to the intervention of Georges Clemenceau, so that she could see her mother again at the brink of death. She was again incarcerated several times, although for shorter periods of time. One could say she was constantly followed by the police.

She was touring France and lecturing on behalf of anarchist causes when she died in Room 11,^[6] Hotel Oasis, Marseilles on January 10, 1905. Her funeral in Paris drew an immense crowd that did not fail to impress contemporaries. Numerous orators spoke, among them the Master Mason of the Lodge of Universal Fraternity, provoking interest in whether or not Michel was in fact a Freemason. She was invited to a Lodge one year before her death, but was never officially "initiated." The members of the Lodge felt honored by her joining, and believed that her previous actions exempted her from the rite of initiation. However, she never attended the Lodge, and when asked why, responded that she "thought they didn't accept women."

Social legacy[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2011)

Michel became highly admired by French workers and revolutionaries, particularly for her association with the Paris Commune. From after her death until 1916, a demonstration was held every year at her tomb at Levallois-Perret.

A legendary figure of the labour movement, Michel had the ability to incite crowds to act. Frequently, the language used to describe her is that reserved for saints and heretics; she is often referred to as "Bonne Louise" (Good Louise) or the "Vierge rouge" (red Virgin). For better or worse, Michel seems to have fascinated her contemporaries. This woman, educated and cultured, intelligent without being shy and retiring, and lacking the beauty of certain demimondaines and other women of loose morals who populated the period before the Belle Epoque, was surrounded by many male celebrities. They were often her steadfast friends, until the end of her life, or more frequently to the end of theirs. For a period when women still had essentially no rights, she was in many respects an exception.

Photos taken of her reveal a woman with a strong and serious face, and a slender figure (it has since been argued that she and Dolores Ibárruri, i..e., La Pasionaria, another Left-of-Center social activist, shared a resemblance). She was, with George Sand, one of the rare women of the 19th century to have worn male clothing at one stage of her life, revealing a feminist indignation.

Generous, devoted to the cause of the most wretched, it is without the slightest doubt her courage which best characterises her personality. When she found herself before the court, she used it as a political soapbox and imposed herself on the judges, who on several occasions commuted her sentences.

Her literary legacy consists of a few theoretical essays and some poems, legends and tales, including some for children, who never failed to interest her. It is perhaps ironic that although primarily remembered for her militant activism — i.e., for her so-called "Social Revolution" — her name is frequently given to primary and secondary schools in French towns. She thus has an implicit image in French culture as France's school teacher, rather than the secular missionary that she in fact was.

On May 1, 1946, the Parisian métro station "Vallier" was renamed Louise Michel. See: Louise Michel (Paris Metro).

In 1975, the courtyard in front of the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre, Paris was named in Louise Michel's honor. The sign at the gate proclaims her a "Heroine of the Commune".

In 2005, the hundredth anniversary of her death was celebrated. During the celebration, two seminars paid homage to the "bonne Louise," notably the important March seminar "Louise Michel, figure of transversality" (led by Valérie Morignat), organized by the mayor of Paris and the cultural association Actazé. This event brought together 22 Louise Michel specialists who underlined an unclassifiable, brilliant, and still contemporary personality. Louise Michel's extraordinary influence can still be seen today in departments of American Feminine Studies, in the form of her thousand-page novel "La misère" (Misery), which denounced the social crisis of the suburbs long before the crisis was recognized as a problem.

Quotes[link]

Michel once joked, “We love to have agents provocateurs in the party, because they always propose the most revolutionary motions.”^[1]

Publications[link]

• À travers la vie, poetry, Paris, 1894.
• Le Bâtard impérial, by L. Michel and J. Winter, Paris, 1883.
• Le claque-dents, Paris.
• La Commune, Paris, 1898.
• Contes et légendes, Paris, 1884.
• Les Crimes de l'époque, nouvelles inédites, Paris, 1888.
• Défense de Louise Michel, Bordeaux, 1883.
• L'Ère nouvelle, pensée dernière, souvenirs de Calédonie (prisoners' songs), Paris, 1887
• La Fille du peuple par L. Michel et A. Grippa, Paris (1883) Fleurs et ronces, poetry, Paris,
• Le Gars Yvon, légende bretonne, Paris, 1882.
• Lectures encyclopédiques par cycles attractifs, Paris, 1888.
• Ligue internationale des femmes révolutionnaires, Appel à une réunion. Signed "Louise Michel", Paris, 1882.
• Le livre du jour de l'an : historiettes, contes et légendes pour les enfants, Paris, 1872.
• Lueurs dans l'ombre. Plus d'idiots, plus de fous. L'âme intelligente. L'idée libre. L'esprit lucide de la terre à Dieu... Paris, 1861.
• Manifeste et proclamation de Louise Michel aux citoyennes de Paris, Signed "Louise Maboul", Paris, 1883.
• Mémoires, Paris, 1886, t. 1.
• Les Méprises, grand roman de mœurs parisiennes, par Louise Michel et Jean Guêtré, Paris, 1882.
• Les Microbes humains, Paris, 1886.
• La Misère by Louise Michel, 2nd part, and Jean Guêtré 1st part, Paris, 1882.
• Le Monde nouveau, Paris, 1888

Posthumous: :

• Vol. I. Avant la Commune. Preface by Laurent Tailhade, Alfortville, 1905.
• Les Paysans by Louise Michel et Émile Gautier, Paris, Incomplete.
• Prise de possession, Saint-Denis, 1890.
• Le Rêve (in a work by Constant Martin), Paris, 1898.
• Légendes et chants de gestes canaques. Présentation. Gérard Oberlé. Edition 1900. 1988.
• Je vous écris de ma nuit, correspondance générale, 1850-1904, edition established by Xavière Gauthier, Édition de Paris-Max Chaleil, 1999.

In the press[link]

Michel was often discussed in the French press during her lifetime, as well as the English-language press in Britain and the United States. These are a sample of press caricatures of Michel:

• 

  Newspaper satirizing Michel's political views

• 

  An elderly Michel depicted as an animated speaker

Bibliography[link]

• Mason, Paul (4 May 2007). Live working or die fighting: how the working class went global. Harvill Secker. ISBN 978-0-436-20615-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=lLBIAAAAYAAJ. Retrieved 15 October 2010. 
• Maclellan, Nic (2004). Louise Michel. Ocean Press. ISBN 978-1-876175-76-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=OiGMPBfoqN8C. Retrieved 15 October 2010. 
• Michel, Louise (January 1981). The Red Virgin: memoirs of Louise Michel. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-0062-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=wsEEAQAAIAAJ. Retrieved 15 October 2010. 
• Thomas, Edith (1980). Louise Michel. Black Rose Books. http://books.google.com/books?id=rNVnAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 15 October 2010. 
• Thomas, Edith; Atkinson, James; Atkinson, Starr (1 April 2007). The Women Incendiaries. Haymarket Books. ISBN 978-1-931859-46-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=8ulJPwAACAAJ. Retrieved 15 October 2010. 
• The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Police by Alex Butterworth (Pantheon Books, 2010)

See also[link]

• Anarchism in France
• Louise Michel Battalions - Spanish Civil War

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Louise Michel

• Louise Michel archive at the Anarchy Archives
• Les Louise Mitchels - French D.I.Y. jazz-punk band influenced by the life and work of Louise Michel
• Cartoons
• Paul Foot on Louise Michel

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Robert Holdstock
Robert Holdstock in Nantes, 2004
Born	(1948-08-02)2 August 1948 Hythe, Kent, UK
Died	29 November 2009 (2009-11-30) (aged 61)
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	British
Period	1968–2009
Genres	Fantasy, Science fiction, Horror
Notable work(s)	Mythago Wood
Influences Tennyson, Mythology
www.robertholdstock.com

Robert Paul Holdstock (2 August 1948 – 29 November 2009) was an English novelist and author best known for his works of Celtic, Nordic, Gothic and Pictish fantasy literature, predominantly in the fantasy subgenre of mythic fiction.

Holdstock's writing was first published during 1968. His science fiction and fantasy works explore philosophical, psychological, anthropological, spiritual, and woodland themes. He received three BSFA awards and won the World Fantasy Award in the category of Best Novel of 1985.

Biography[link]

Robert Holdstock, the oldest of five children, was born in Hythe, Kent. His father, Robert Frank Holdstock, was a police officer and his mother, Kathleen Madeline Holdstock, was a nurse. At the age of seven years, Robert started attending the Gillingham Grammar School in the Medway Towns. As a young adult he had jobs including banana boatman, construction worker, and slate miner.^[1]

As an adult he earned a Bachelor of Science from University College of North Wales, Bangor, with honours in applied Zoology (1967–1970). He continued his education, earning a Master of Science in Medical Zoology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 1971. He conducted research at the Medical Research Council in London from 1971 to 1974 while also doing part-time writing. He became a full-time writer during 1976 and lived out the rest of his life in North London.^[2][3]

He died in hospital at the age of 61, following his collapse with an E. coli infection on 18 November 2009.^[4][5]

Writings[link]

Robert Holdstock's first published story, Pauper's Plot, appeared in the New Worlds magazine in 1968.^[6] His first novel was a science fiction work titled Eye Among the Blind, released in 1976.^[7]

During the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s Holdstock wrote many fantasy and science fiction novels along with a number of short stories, most of which were published under a pseudonym. Robert Holdstock's pseudonyms include Robert Faulcon, Chris Carlsen, Richard Kirk, Robert Black, Ken Blake, and Steven Eisler.^[8] During this same period, he wrote "Space Wars, Worlds, and Weapons," a series of essays about the various tropes of Science Fiction, interspersed with colour reproductions of space art.

In 1980 Holdstock cowrote Tour of the Universe with Malcolm Edwards. The rights were subsequently sold for a space shuttle simulation ride at the CN Tower, also called the Tour of the Universe.

Holdstock wrote a novella, The Dark Wheel, which was included with the best-selling 1984 computer game Elite. Holdstock has also written The Emerald Forest, based on the film of the same name as directed by John Boorman (director of Deliverance and Excalibur amongst others). He also novelised episodes of the Granada television seris Bulman.

Holdstock's breakthrough novel Mythago Wood was published during 1984 with his true name. Mythago Wood is recognized as Holdstock's first major fantasy work and begins the Ryhope wood series.^[9] The books in this series started with the Mythago Wood novella published in 1981 and continue to the present day with the sequel to Mythago Wood, Avilion, published in July 2009.

From 2001 to 2007 Holdstock produced a trilogy of fantasy novels, the Merlin Codex, consisting of Celtika, The Iron Grail and The Broken Kings.

Holdstock has authored, edited, and contributed to a number of non-fiction works including Alien Landscapes, Tour of the Universe, Horror: 100 Best Novels and the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (not The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.)

Critical analysis[link]

Holdstock's works have been subject to much literary analysis. The majority of this analysis is of Mythago Wood.

David Pringle describes Eye Among the Blind, Holdstock's first science fiction novel, as a "dogged, detailed, somewhat slow-moving planetary mystery."^[10] Regarding the same novel Ursula K. Le Guin remarked "As strong a treatment of a central theme of science fiction – alienness, and the relation of the human and the alien – as any I have read."^[11]

According to Michael D. C. Drout, a modern J. R. R. Tolkien scholar, Holdstock's fantasy is a significant part of the fantasy literature genre. This is because (in the Ryhope wood series) Holdstock has created literary arts containing the power and aesthetic standards of Tolkien’s fantasy without being either a "close imitation of" or a "reaction against" Tolkien. Drout considers Holdstock, along with Ursula K. Le Guin, a worthy inheritor of the fantasy tradition created by Tolkien.^[12] According to a study of Tolkien's works by Partrick Curry, Holdstock is placed in a quartet of noteworthy fantasy authors including Ursula K. Le Guin, John Crowley and Marion Zimmer Bradley for writing fantasy books that come close to Tolkien's breadth and depth of imagination, and "in some respects surpass Tolkien."^[13]

One essayist states "Robert Holdstock's gift for evoking landscapes and weaving mythic patterns is outstanding."^[14] Accordingly, the covers of his books have been produced by a variety of notable Science Fiction and Fantasy illustrators. The original UK and US covers of Mythago Wood were illustrated by Eddi Gornall and Christopher Zacharow, respectively; Geoff Taylor illustrated the original UK covers for the Mythago Wood sequels Lavondyss, The Bone Forest, The Hollowing and Merlin's Wood. Illustrators of subsequent covers and editions include Jim Burns, Tom Canty, John Howe, Alan Lee, John Jude Pallencar, Larry Rostant, and Ron Walotsky. John Howe stated "Holdstock is to me one of the best Celtic fantasy authors alive today."^[15]

David Langford offers praise for most of Holdstock's work, but regarding Merlin's Wood he states "the overall narrative is flawed, distorted by its weight of undeserved loss and inaccessible healing."^[16]

Awards[link]

• The novella Mythago Wood won the BSFA Award for Best Short Story in 1981 along with the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella in 1982.
• The novel Mythago Wood won the BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1984 along with the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1985. Mythago Wood was published as part of the Masterpieces of Fantasy series by Easton Press, who describe themselves as releasing 'works of lasting meaning, beauty and importance.'
• Lavondyss won the BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1988.
• The Bone Forest was nominated for the World Fantasy Award in the category of Best Collection in 1992.
• The Ragthorn, coauthored with Garry Kilworth, won the World Fantasy Award in the category of Best Novella in 1992 and was nominated for the BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1994.
• The Fetch won the HOMer Award for horror novel in 1992.
• The Iron Grail won the Czech Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Award in the category of Best Novel in 2002.
• La Forêt des Mythagos, i.e. the Mythago Wood collection, won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in the category of Prix spécial in 2003.
• Scarrowfell, Valley of Statues and Other Stories and its translation, published in French, won the Prix d'Imaginales award in the New Fantasy category in 2004.
• Celtika won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in the Foreign Language Novel category in 2004.

Select bibliography[link]

Ryhope Wood series

• Mythago Wood
• Lavondyss
• The Bone Forest, a novella and short story collection
• The Hollowing
• Merlin's Wood, a novel and two short stories (only published in the UK)
• Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn
• Avilion

Merlin Codex series

• Celtika
• The Iron Grail
• The Broken Kings

Other novels

• Eye Among the Blind
• Earthwind
• Necromancer
• Where Time Winds Blow
• In the Valley of the Statues (short story collection)
• The Emerald Forest (film novelisation)
• The Fetch (also published under the title Unknown Regions)
• Ancient Echoes
• The Dark Wheel computer game novella included in Elite (video game)

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

Denis Lavant
Lavant in 2010 at the Deauville American Film Festival
Born	(1961-07-17) July 17, 1961 (age 50) Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1982–present

Denis Lavant (born 17 June 1961) is a French film actor known for his distinctive face and the physically demanding aspects of the roles he plays, which often involve slapstick, acrobatics or dance, as well as for his long-standing association with director Leos Carax. Lavant has played the lead role in all but one of Carax's films.

Lavant is also known for his starring roles in Claire Denis' Beau Travail and Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely, which features Carax in a supporting role.

Biography[link]

Lavant was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine in France. Lavant began acting professionally in 1982 and appeared in minor roles before making his breakthrough in 1984 as the lead in Boy Meets Girl, the directorial debut of Leos Carax, with whose films he has been associated ever since. In 1986, Lavant and Carax worked together again on the thriller Mauvais Sang and again in 1991 on Carax's third film, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. In both Mauvais Sang and Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, Lavant starred opposite Juliette Binoche. In 1998, Lavant appeared in the iconic Jonathan Glazer-directed video for the UNKLE song Rabbit in Your Headlights, and in 1999, he played one of the lead roles in Beau Travail, directed by Claire Denis. In 2007, he appeared in Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely, in which he portrayed a Charlie Chaplin impersonator. Lavant, who does not speak English, took an intensive language course in preparation and learned his lines phonetically.^[1] His longtime associate Leos Carax appears in a supporting role as the main character's talent agent.

In 2008, Lavant and Carax re-united for the anthology film Tokyo!, which marked their first work together since Lovers on the Bridge and Carax's first major directing work in nearly a decade. Carax's segment for the film, called "Merde," starred Lavant as a violent monster who lives in the sewers of Tokyo and speaks in a gibberish language, venturing out occasionally to attack passersby.

Filmography[link]