Jean Malaquais

Jean Malaquais (1908-1998), born Wladimir Malacki in Warsaw to a Polish Jewish family, was a French-language novelist who won the prestigious Prix Renaudot in 1939 for his debut novel Les Javanais, praised by André Gide and Leon Trotsky, and is best known for Planète sans visa (1947), depicting exiles in Vichy France. A stateless immigrant turned US citizen, he lived a nomadic life across Europe, Mexico, and the US, writing about outsiders and workers while associating with literary figures like Gide and Norman Mailer.