![]() In 1952 Boulle turned his wartime experiences into a bestselling novel, Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï ( The Bridge over the River Kwai). He and other Allied POWs were put to hard labour building a railroad bridge. ![]() In 1943 Boulle was captured in the Mekong Delta by the Japanese. Boulle escaped to Singapore and became a spy for the Free French Forces in China, Burma and Indochina. ![]() For Boulle this meant that the Vichy forces turned control of Indochina over to the Japanese. In 1941 France fell to the Germans and the collaborationist Vichy government was installed. When the Second World War broke out Boulle was called up and posted to French Indochina where he trained Vietnamese peasants in combat techniques. ![]() Seeking adventure, Boulle moved to Malaya as a young man to work as an electrical engineer on a rubber plantation. Boulle was best known in the English language world for two of his books which became bestsellers in translation and were made into award-winning movies: The Bridge On the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes. Pierre Boulle, the French novelist and wartime secret agent died in Paris on Januat the age of eighty-one. ![]()
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