1. Romain Gary is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice.
25 Facts About Romain Gary
1. 2.
Romain Gary is considered a major writer of French literature of the second half of the 20th century.
3.
Romain Gary was married to Lesley Blanch, then Jean Seberg.
4.
Romain Gary's mother, Mina Owczynska, was a Jewish actress from Svencionys and his father was a businessman named Arieh-Leib Kacew from Trakai, a Lithuanian Jew.
5.
Romain Gary later claimed that his actual father was the celebrated actor and film star Ivan Mosjoukine, with whom his actress mother had worked and to whom he bore a striking resemblance.
6.
When Romain Gary was fourteen, he and his mother emigrated illegally to Nice, France.
7.
Romain Gary studied law, first in Aix-en-Provence and then in Paris.
8.
Romain Gary learned to pilot an aircraft in the French Air Force in Salon-de-Provence and in Avord Air Base, near Bourges.
9.
Romain Gary believed the military establishment was distrustful of him because he was a foreigner and a Jew.
10.
Romain Gary returned to England to train on Boston IIIs.
11.
On 25 January 1944, his pilot was blinded, albeit temporarily, and Romain Gary talked him to the bombing target and back home, the third landing being successful.
12.
Romain Gary finished the war as a captain in the London offices of the Free French Air Forces.
13.
Romain Gary was decorated for his bravery in the war, receiving many medals and honours, including Compagnon de la Liberation and commander of the Legion d'honneur.
14.
Romain Gary published under the pseudonyms Shatan Bogat and Fosco Sinibaldi.
15.
Romain Gary became one of France's most popular and prolific writers, writing more than 30 novels, essays and memoirs, some of which he wrote under a pseudonym.
16.
Romain Gary is the only person to win the Prix Goncourt twice.
17.
Romain Gary, who had already received the prize in 1956 for Les racines du ciel, published La vie devant soi under the pseudonym Emile Ajar in 1975.
18.
Romain Gary later revealed the truth in his posthumous book Vie et mort d'Emile Ajar.
19.
Romain Gary published as Shatan Bogat, Rene Deville and Fosco Sinibaldi, as well under his birth name Roman Kacew.
20.
From 1962 to 1970, Romain Gary was married to American actress Jean Seberg, with whom he had a son, Alexandre Diego Romain Gary.
21.
Romain Gary died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on 2 December 1980 in Paris.
22.
Romain Gary left a note which said that his death had no relation to Seberg's suicide the previous year.
23.
Romain Gary stated in his note that he was Emile Ajar.
24.
Romain Gary was cremated in Pere Lachaise Cemetery and his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea near Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
25.
The name of Romain Gary was given to a promotion of the Ecole nationale d'administration, the Institut d'etudes politiques de Lille, the Institut regional d'administration de Lille and the Institut d'etudes politiques de Strasbourg, in 2006 at Place Romain-Gary in the 15th arrondissement of Paris and at the Nice Heritage Library.