French novelist, born in Moscow, Russia. He came to France at six years of age, and began his literary career with Faux Jour (1935) and L'Araigne (Prix Goncourt, 1938). He published a series of romantic novels with a background of contemporary Russian history, including Tant que la Lumière durera (1947–50), La Lumière des Justes (1959–63), Le Pain de l'Etranger (1984), and Les Héritiers de l'Avenir (1968–70). Les Vivants (1946) was written for the theatre, and he also published notable biographies of Russian figures, including Dostoevsky (1940), Peter the Great (1979), Maupassant, Zola, Verlaine (1993), Flaubert, and Baudelaire (1994). He became a member of the Académie Française in 1959.