Pierre Benoit, born in Albi (southern France) was the son of a French soldier.

Benoit spent his early years and military service in Northern Africa, before becoming a civil servant and librarian.

[4] This led him to be arrested in September 1944; he was eventually released after six months, but his work remained on the "blacklist" of French Nazi collaborators for several years afterwards.

[2] He attempted to resign from the Académie française in 1959 in protest over their refusal to accept the writer Paul Morand after his application was vetoed by General Charles DeGaulle.

Late in his life, Benoit gave a series of interviews with the French writer Paul Guimard.