Editing Pierre Boulle (section)

==Life and career==
Born in [[Avignon]], France, Pierre Boulle was baptised and raised as a [[Catholic]], although later in life he became an [[agnostic]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2012}} He studied at the prestigious ''École supérieure d'électricité'' ([[Supélec]]) where he received an [[Engineer%27s_degree#France|degree in engineering]] in 1933.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-pierre-boulle-1391376.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-pierre-boulle-1391376.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Obituary: Pierre Boulle|newspaper=[[The Independent]] |date=2 February 1994}}</ref> From 1936 to 1939, he worked as a technician at [[SOCFIN Group|SOCFIN]] rubber plantations in [[British Malaya|Malaya]]. Boulle met a Frenchwoman at a dinner held at his supervisor's residence, The White Palace, who was separated from her husband. She was soon to become the love of his life, to whom he would write tender love letters. She later chose to return to her husband, an official in [[French Indochina]]. During [[World War II]] she and her husband escaped into Malaya, but one of her children died in the process. Boulle would later meet her after the war, and they enjoyed a platonic friendship.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

At the outbreak of World War II, Boulle enlisted with the French army in Indochina. After German troops occupied France, he became a supporter of [[Charles de Gaulle]] and joined the [[Free French Forces|Free French]] Mission in [[Singapore]].  Boulle served as a [[Espionage|secret agent]] under the name Peter John Rule and was sent on a mission to help resistance movements in China, [[Burma]], and [[French Indochina]]. In 1943, he was captured by [[Vichy France]] loyalists on the [[Mekong River]] and was subjected to forced labour. Two years later, Boulle managed to escape from Saigon,<ref>{{cite news |first=François |last=Doré |title=L'épopée de Pierre Boulle |trans-title=The epic of Pierre Boulle |magazine=Gavroche Thaïlande |issue=160 |date=February 2008 |url=https://www.gavroche-thailande.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Gavroche-2008-Feb..pdf |format=pdf|page=29}}</ref> and joined [[Force 136]] of the [[Special Operations Executive]] in Calcutta.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

Boulle was later made a ''chevalier'' of the [[Légion d'Honneur]] and decorated with the [[Croix de guerre 1939–1945|Croix de Guerre]] and the [[Médaille de la Résistance]]. He described his war experiences in the non-fiction ''My Own River Kwai''. After the war he kept in touch with his war comrades for the rest of his life.

After the war, Boulle returned to work for a while in the plantations of SOCFIN in Malaya, in 1949<ref>[http://chroniques.bnf.fr/numero_courant/collections/pierre_boulle.htm Pieyre C, "Du Pont de la rivière KwaÏ à la Planète des singes : Don des manuscrits de Pierre Boulle"], ''chroniques.fr'', Bibliothèque nationale de France</ref> he moved back to [[Paris]] and began to write, drawing from his memories of Malaya and 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. She had a daughter, Françoise, whom Pierre helped raise, but plans for him to officially adopt the girl never materialized.