The Bridge On The River Kwai

A fine ironic novel, that is yet another French tribute to British eccentricity

Pierre Boulle was born in 1912 at Avignon. Boulle studied as an engineer but ended up moving to Malaysia where he worked as both a soldier and a planter. Boulle fought in Yunnan, Calcutta and Indo-Chine during the Second World War until he was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned in a POW camp. It was this experience that would later form the basis of his infamous novel, The Bridge on the River Kwai. Upon his departure from Asia, Boulle's literature made a turn towards the fantastic and science fiction while contemplating the political and cultural upheaval experienced by the modern man. His most famous science fiction novel, Monkey Planet (its film adaptation was renamed The Planet of the Apes) has been adapted eight different times for either television or film. Boulle died in 1994.

The Bridge on the River Kwai tells the story of three POWs who endure the hell of the Japanese camps on the Burma-Siam railway - Colonel Nicholson, a man prepared to sacrifice his life but not his dignity; Major Warden, a modest hero, saboteur and deadly killer; Commander Shears, who escaped from hell but was sent back. 
 
Ordered by the Japanese to build a bridge, the Colonel refuses, as it is against regulations for officers to work with other ranks. The Japanese give way but, to prove a point of British superiority, construction of the bridge goes ahead - at great cost to the men under Nicholson's command.

Pierre Boulle

A scintillating mix of sci-fi adventure and allegory

In 1963, at the most glacial moment of the Cold War, Frenchman Pierre Boulle wrote a novel called Planet Of The Apes - a drastic warning about where mankind's apparent desire to destroy itself might lead

Boulle called on his own experiences as a prisoner of war in South-east Asia during the Second World War, using the relationship between man and apes as a metaphor for the treatment handed out to prisoners by brutish Japanese guards

It's like a good myth or fairy-tale that stays with you... Part of the strength of this material is its disruptive, questioning nature. Who came first? Where are we going?

The subtext is strongly anti-slavery, anti-racist and anti-war

Read the classic, chilling dystopian novel that inspired one of the world's most iconic film franchises 
 
'A scintillating mix of sci-fi adventure and allegory' Los Angeles Times 
 
In a spaceship that can travel at the speed of light, Ulysse, a journalist, sets off from Earth for the nearest solar system. There he finds Soror, a planet which resembles his own, but where humans behave like animals, and are hunted by a civilised race of primates. 
 
Captured and sent to a research facility, Ulysse must convince the apes of their mutual origins. But such revelations will have always been greeted by prejudice and fear... 
 
'A drastic warning about where mankind's apparent desire to destroy itself might lead' The Mirror

Pierre Boulle

Praise for Planet of the Apes

A scintillating mix of sci-fi adventure and allegory

In 1963, at the most glacial moment of the Cold War, Frenchman Pierre Boulle wrote a novel called Planet Of The Apes - a drastic warning about where mankind's apparent desire to destroy itself might lead

Boulle called on his own experiences as a prisoner of war in South-east Asia during the Second World War, using the relationship between man and apes as a metaphor for the treatment handed out to prisoners by brutis ...

A scintillating mix of sci-fi adventure and allegory

In 1963, at the most glacial moment of the Cold War, Frenchman Pierre Boulle wrote a novel called Planet Of The Apes - a drastic warning about where mankind's apparent desire to destroy itself might lead

Boulle called on his own experiences as a prisoner of war in South-east Asia during the Second World War, using the relationship between man and apes as a metaphor for the treatment handed out to prisoners by brutis ...

A scintillating mix of sci-fi adventure and allegory

In 1963, at the most glacial moment of the Cold War, Frenchman Pierre Boulle wrote a novel called Planet Of The Apes - a drastic warning about where mankind's apparent desire to destroy itself might lead

Boulle called on his own experiences as a prisoner of war in South-east Asia during the Second World War, using the relationship between man and apes as a metaphor for the treatment handed out to prisoners by brutis ...

Books by Pierre Boulle

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