[1] Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Singapore, when he was captured and subjected to two years' forced labour.

Boulle met a Frenchwoman at a dinner held at his supervisor's residence, The White Palace, who was separated from her husband.

After German troops occupied France, he became a supporter of Charles de Gaulle and joined the Free French Mission in Singapore.

Boulle served as a secret agent under the name Peter John Rule and was sent on a mission to help resistance movements in China, Burma, and French Indochina.

While in Paris, too poor to afford his own flat, he lived in a hotel until his recently widowed sister, Madeleine Perrusset, allowed him to move into her large apartment.

While in Paris, Boulle used his war experiences in writing Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (1952; The Bridge on the River Kwai), which became a multi-million-copy worldwide bestseller, winning the French "Prix Sainte-Beuve".

Boulle outlined the reasoning which led him to conceive the character of Nicholson in an interview which forms part of the 1969 BBC2 documentary Return to the River Kwai made by former POW John Coast.

Boulle had been credited with the screenplay because the film's actual screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, had been blacklisted as communist sympathizers.

[9] With inspiration drawn from observing the wildlife from his years in the plantations in Malaya, the book was highly praised and given such reviews as this example from England's Guardian newspaper: "Classic science fiction ... full of suspense and satirical intelligence."

In the year 2500, a group of astronauts, including journalist Ulysse Mérou, voyage to a planet in the star system of Betelgeuse.

They land to discover a bizarre world where intelligent apes are the Master Race and humans are reduced to savages: caged in zoos, used in laboratory experiments and hunted for sport.

The story focuses on Ulysse's capture, his struggle to survive, and the shattering climax as he returns to Earth and a horrific final discovery.