Julien Gracq

Julien Gracq (1910–2007), born Louis Poirier, was a French writer best known for his novels. He wrote under a pen name—a combination of Julien Sorel from Stendhal’s The Red and the Black and the Gracchus brothers of the Roman republic. His lyrical and dense prose earned him recognition as a master stylist. In 1951, he won the Prix Goncourt for The Opposing Shore but refused it out of disdain for the literary establishment.