Jean Bruller


Jean Marcel Adolphe Bruller was a French writer and illustrator who co-founded Les Éditions de Minuit with Pierre de Lescure. Born to a Hungarian-Jewish father, during World War II occupation of northern France he joined the Resistance and his texts were published under the pseudonym Vercors.
Several of his novels have fantasy or science fiction themes. The 1952 novel Les Animaux dénaturés was made into the film Skullduggery starring Burt Reynolds and Susan Clark, and examines the question of what it means to be human.
Colères is about the quest for immortality. In 1960 he wrote Sylva, a novel about a fox who turns into a woman, inspired by David Garnett's novel Lady into Fox. The English-language version, translated by his wife Rita Barisse, was a finalist for the 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
His historical novel Anne Boleyn presents a very intelligent Anne as having determinedly set about marrying Henry VIII of England in order to separate England from Papal power and strengthen England's independence.

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