Jean Bruller

Jean Bruller, who wrote under the pen name Vercors, was a French writer and illustrator of the twentieth century. His significance lies in combining storytelling, political engagement and scientific curiosity, and in co-founding the publisher Les Éditions de Minuit with Pierre de Lescure.

Born in Paris in 1902 to a father of Hungarian-Jewish origin, Bruller joined the Resistance in northern France during the German occupation in the Second World War. It was then that he began publishing under the name Vercors. His best-known work, Le Silence de la mer (1942), was the first book issued by the new press, and it became one of the most widely read accounts of the occupation.

His early stories deal with the war that had just ended, but his interests soon widened. He was briefly a member of the French Communist Party before moving toward the dissident current. He opposed the death penalty, supported the legalisation of abortion and defended prisoners' rights. In 1957 he returned his Legion of Honour to the French president in protest at the Algerian War. His scientific interest in human evolution and in what defines a human being, debated with scientists such as Jacques and Théodore Monod, runs through much of his fiction.

Several of his novels border on science fiction and fantasy. Les Animaux dénaturés (1952), which asks what it means to be human, was filmed in 1970 as Skullduggery. Sylva (1961), inspired by David Garnett's Lady into Fox, had an English translation that was a finalist for the 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel. His historical novel Anne Boleyn (1985) portrays a shrewd Anne Boleyn who set out to marry Henry VIII in order to loosen England's ties to Papal power.

His legacy lies chiefly in French Resistance literature and in his insistence on moral conscience in the face of violence and power.