Robert Merle (; 28 August 1908 – 27 March 2004) was a French novelist.
Early life
Merle was born in 1908 in Tébessa, French Algeria. His father Félix, who was an interpreter "with a perfect knowledge of literary and spoken Arabic", was killed in 1916 in the Dardanelles. Young Merle and his mother moved to Paris, where he attended three lycées and the Sorbonne.
Career
Academia and World War II
Merle was professor of English Literature at several universities until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. During the war, Merle was conscripted into the French army and assigned as an interpreter to the British Expeditionary Force. In 1940, he was in the Dunkirk evacuation on the beach of Zuydcoote — which he called a "blind and abominable lottery" — and was captured by the Germans. Merle was taken prisoner to Stalag VID at Dortmund, and escaped, but was recaptured at Belgian customs. He was repatriated in July 1943, and after the war was awarded the Croix du Combattant. Merle's post-apocalyptic novel Malevil (1972) was also adapted into a 1981 film. The series made Merle a household name in France, with the author repeatedly called the Alexandre Dumas of the 20th century.
Personal life
Merle was married three times, and had four sons and two daughters. He died in 2004 at age 95 of a heart attack in Montfort-l'Amaury, France. Le Monde dubbed Merle "France's greatest popular novelist", and Le Figaro observed, "Robert Merle is one of the very few French writers who have attained both popular success and the admiration of critics."