Georges Bayard (1918–2004)

Georges Bayard was born in Amiens, France, and spent his childhood in the small town of Corbie in the Somme region. He studied at the École normale d'instituteurs d'Amiens (Normal School for Teachers, Amiens), from which he graduated in 1937. At the start of World War II, he was mobilized by the French Army as a reserve officer. During the German Occupation, he worked for the French Resistance and rejoined the regular army in 1944. For his outstanding service, he was awarded the 1939-1945 War Cross and the Resistance Medal. Bayard left the army in 1952 with a diploma in English interpreting, and became a teacher, first in the north, then in the western Paris suburbs of Hauts-de-Seine, where he would spend the rest of his career. His wife, Louise Marandet, an artist-painter, also taught there. It was while working as a teacher that Bayard began his prolific writing career. He started by contributing stories and articles to periodicals for young people, and published a translation of five Simon Black adventure novels by Australian author Ivan Southall. Bayard followed this with his first two books, the historical novels La Chanson du capstan and Amérique an mille. In 1958, he began publishing his Michel series for a teenage audience, which became hugely popular and one of the longest-running young adult series in modern French literature with 39 titles. He had additional success with his César and Cécile series. Bayard also published a few novels for adults under the pseudonyms of Georges Travelier and Jean-Pierre Decrest. He retired in 1988 and moved to Soyans in the Drôme region, where he had a second home. Several of the Michel novels were adapted into a French television movie in 1989.