The death has been announced in Paris of one of the greatest figures in modern French literature, the writer Henri Troyat, at the age of 95. ?
He was the author of more than 100 works of fiction, history and biography – the most recent published a year ago.
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Mr Troyat was born into an Armenian family in Moscow, but his businessman father fled the Russian revolution, and the family eventually settled in Paris.
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He wrote in French but many of his works dealt with Russian subjects.
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He won his first literary award at the age of 24, “le prix du roman populaire”. At the age of 27 he was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt.
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His biographies of writers and monarchs included Anton Chekov, Catherine the Great, Rasputin, Ivan the Terrible and Leo Tolstoy.
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At the time of his death, announced in the French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday, he was the dean of the Academie Francaise.
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Henri Toyat was born in 01 November 1911 and died on 02 March 2007.
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His original name is Levon Aslan Torossian or Lev Aslanovich Tarasov.
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He published more than 100 books, novels and biographies.
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His best-known work is “La neige en deuil”, which was adapted as an English-language film in 1956 under the title “The Mountain”.
