Anatole France

Anatole France was born François-Anatole Thibault in Paris, the son of a bookseller. His father's bookstore, Librairie France, specialized in books and papers on the French Revolution and was frequented by many notable writers and scholars of the day. Anatole France studied at the Collège Stanislas and went to work with his father after his graduation.

After several years he became a cataloguer at Bacheline-Deflorenne and at Lemerre. He began his career as a poet and a journalist. In 1876 he was appointed a librarian for the French Senate. He became famous with the novel Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), which won a prize from the French Academy.

He was elected to the Académie française in 1896. In the 1920s, his writings were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Prohibited Books Index) of the Roman Catholic Church. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921.