Allinson, Alfred

Anatole France (16 April 1844 - 12 October 1924), born Francois-Anatole Thibault, was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Academie Francaise, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his literary achievements. France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel's literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.