Paul Andréota

Paul Andréota (11 December 1917 – 14 November 2007) was a French novelist and screenwriter. He was also known under the pen name Paul Vance.

Paul Andréota was born in La Rochelle in the Charente-Maritime department (when the department was then known as Charente-Inférieure). When he was 12 years old, his father died, and he and his family moved to Paris. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and entering the École Normale Supérieure, he started studying music, particularly piano and composition, at the conservatory; he was a big fan of jazz.

The onset of World War II changed Andréota's life dramatically. He spent part of the period of the German occupation of France in Marseille, which became the setting for his first novel after the war, Hors Jeu (lit. "Offside"), published by Grasset in 1947. He then wrote and published Evangeline (1948), which he dedicated to his friend, writer Michel Perrin, and Attentat à la pudeur (lit. "Indecent Assault") in 1949. These two autobiographical novels inspired him to move in another direction.

He then became a screenwriter, doing adaptations and dialogues. He wrote approximately 40 films, collaborating with famous directors. In 1968, while continuing to write for the stage, he returned to literature. Meanwhile, he also wrote screenplays and dialogues for the TV series Commissaire Moulin and Marie Pervenche. Later, under the pseudonym Paul Vance, he published two crime novels for Le Masque [fr] (lit. "The Mask").