Gerard de Villiers
| Gérard de Villiers | |
|---|---|
| Born |
8 December 1929 Paris, France |
| Died | 31 October 2013 (aged 83) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Writer |
Gérard de Villiers (French: [ʒeʁaʁ də vilje]; 8 December 1929 – 31 October 2013) was a French writer, journalist and publisher whose SAS series of spy novels have been major bestsellers. According to the New York Times, "His works have been translated and are especially popular in Germany, Russia, Turkey, and Japan. The SAS series has sold a reported 120 million copies worldwide, which would make it one of the top-selling series in history, on a par with Ian Fleming's James Bond books. SAS may be the longest-running fiction series ever written by a single author." De Villiers' books are well known in French-speaking countries for their in-depth insider knowledge of such subjects as espionage, geopolitics, and terrorist threats, as well as their hard-core sex scenes. Bringing de Villiers and his hero Malko Linge to English-speaking readers, Vintage Books published The Madmen of Benghazi and Chaos in Kabul in 2014, Revenge of the Kremlin in 2015, and Lord of the Swallows in February 2016. Surface to Air is due out in June. All were translated by veteran literary translator William Rodarmor.
Villiers was the son of Jacques Adam de Villiers and a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, France's most reputed and highly selective Political Science university, as well as the ESJ Paris (Superior School of Journalism in Paris).
After working as a foreign correspondent until 1965, he started writing spy novels. He is the author of the spy novel series SAS, beginning in 1965, which tells the adventures of the Austrian prince and CIA agent Malko Linge. The title SAS is a play on initials and acronyms: Son Altesse sérénissime (SAS) is the French version of "His Serene Highness" (HSH). In addition, the British Special Air Service (SAS) is the principal special forces unit of the British Army.
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