Creator

Joseph Kessel

France · 1922–1979

Joseph Kessel (1898–1979) was a French novelist, journalist and member of the Académie Française whose literary work frequently explored human passion, moral ambiguity and extraordinary lives. His writing combined psychological observation with a strong interest in the tensions between social convention and individual desire. Published in 1928, his novel Belle de Jour became one of his most enduring works, examining themes of fantasy, sexuality and hidden identity through the story of a respectable woman leading a secret double life. The novel later provided the foundation for Luis Buñuel's celebrated cinematic adaptation, although the film reinterprets several aspects of the source material through Buñuel's distinctive surrealist vision.