Anne Golon was born as Simone Changeux on 17 December 1921 in Toulon, a port in south-eastern France.

[3] She was interested in painting and writing from early childhood and published her first novel, The Country From Behind My Eyes,[4] when she was 18 under the pen name Joëlle Danterne.

She wrote using different pen names, helped create France Magazine, and was awarded a literary prize for The Patrol of the Saint Innocents.

By the 1990s, Anne was reduced to a state close to poverty and filed a lawsuit against the French publisher Hachette for abuse of copyright and unpaid royalties.

In 2006, after a legal battle lasting nearly a decade, she reached an agreement which left her the sole owner of the Angélique series.