Gilles Perrault

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Gilles Perrault (b 1931) is a French writer and journalist. He attended the College Stanislaus in Paris and then studied at the Institut d’Etudes politiques, eventually becoming a lawyer, in which profession he worked for five years. After the success of his essay 'Les Parachutistes', inspired by his military service in Algeria, he became a journalist and did reportages about Nehru's India, the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the problems of afro-americans in the United States. He then investigated less known aspects of the Second World War.

'Le Secret du Jour J' (1964) won a prize of the Comité d'action de la Résistance and was an international bestseller. 'L'Orchestre Rouge' (1967) had even more success. In 1969 Perrault publishes a novel, Le dossier 51.

A more recent book of his is the description of the regime of torture of Hassan II, at the time king of Morocco who had until then be described in a more positive light due to his good relations with the Western World. Perrault's book Le Garçon aux yeux gris was adapted by André Téchiné for the film Les Égarés.