Julien Green

Julien Green (originally "Julian Hartridge Green", 6 September 1900 – 13 August 1998), often Julian Green, was an American writer who lived most of his life in France and wrote primarily in French, although he also wrote some works in English. Over a long and prolific career, he authored novels and essays, several plays, and a biography of Francis of Assisi, produced a four-volume autobiography, and for decades maintained a daily journal that he edited and published in nineteen volumes. The posthumous publication of the unexpurgated journals revealed aspects of his personality and sexuality that had been omitted from the published editions, revealed details about many of his prominent contemporaries, and documented the gay subculture of 20th-century France. When elected to membership in the Académie française in 1971, he was the first non-French national to join its ranks. He was the recipient of many awards and one of the few writers to have his collected works published in Gallimard's Pleiade library during his lifetime.