Michel Tournier
Overview
 

Michel Tournier is a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 writer.

His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française
Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française
Le Grand Prix du Roman is a French literary award, created in 1918, and given each year by the Académie française. Along with the Prix Goncourt, it is one of the oldest and most prestigious literary awards in France...

in 1967 for Friday, or, The Other Island and the Prix Goncourt
Prix Goncourt
The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...

 for The Erl-King
The Erl-King (novel)
The Erl-King is a 1970 novel by the French writer Michel Tournier. It is also known as The Ogre. It tells the story of a man who recruits children to be Nazis in the belief that he is protecting them. The novel received the Prix Goncourt. Volker Schlöndorff directed a 1996 film, based on the...

in 1970. His works dwell on the fantastic, his inspirations including traditional German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 culture, Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

, and the philosophies of Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...

. He currently lives in Choisel
Choisel
Choisel is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-References:*...

 and is a member of the Académie Goncourt
Académie Goncourt
The Société littéraire des Goncourt , usually called the académie Goncourt , is a French literary organization based in Paris. It was founded by the French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt...

. His autobiography has been translated and published as The Wind Spirit (Beacon Press, 1988).
Born in Paris from parents who met at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 while studying German, he spent his youth in Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the centre.Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois...

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