Jules Roy

"Prolific and polemical" Roy, born an Algerian pied noir and sent to a Roman Catholic seminary, used his experiences in the French colony and during his service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War as inspiration for a number of his works.

He was born in Rovigo, Algeria, and spent his childhood on the farm of his maternal grandparents, the Pâris, small landholders who lived near the village of Sidi Moussa, about eight kilometres north of the town.

[2][3] During World War II, Roy commanded a Royal Air Force squadron which was engaged in bombing the Ruhr Basin; he described the missions in La Vallée heureuse (Charlot, 1946).

[1] His Le Voyage en Chine (Julliard, 1965) recounts the story of a visit to Mao Zedong's China during which he planned to make a film portraying what he had imagined to be the successful transformation of the society, only to be disappointed at the lack of access to real conditions.

In 1995, Roy, who had been living in France for many years, returned to Algeria and visited his mother's grave in the small pied noir cemetery at Sidi Moussa.