Maurice Druon

Maurice Druon wrote The Accursed Kings, escaped occupied France to join de Gaulle, and co-wrote the anthem of the Resistance. He was the illegitimate son of a Russian-Jewish actor who killed himself, was raised in Normandy, and was at cavalry school when France fell in 1940. He crossed Spain to London in 1942 with his uncle, the writer Joseph Kessel, and the two of them wrote French words to a Russian melody by Anna Marly on a single afternoon; the Chant des Partisans was broadcast by the BBC and whistled as a recognition signal in occupied France. He worked as a war correspondent and later served as minister of culture under Pompidou and as permanent secretary of the Academie francaise. Les Rois maudits, seven novels published from 1955, begins with the destruction of the Knights Templar in 1307 and the curse Jacques de Molay is said to have pronounced from the pyre on Philip the Fair and Pope Clement, and follows the collapse of the Capetian line into the Hundred Years' War. George R. R. Martin has called it the original game of thrones and cited it as a direct influence. It was twice adapted for French television and remains in print. He was politically conservative and combative about it to the end. He was elected to the Academie francaise at forty-eight and spent decades defending the French language against English borrowings. His uncle Kessel wrote Belle de Jour and Army of Shadows. The Chant des Partisans was performed at the Pantheon when Jean Moulin's remains were interred there in 1964.

• Lived: 1918 CE – 2009 CE
• Nationality: French
• Roles: writer