A remarkable irony of the contemporary American literary scene is the relative nonstatus of a polyglot expatriate Frenchman who makes his home in the central Georgia community of Macon. He is one of the most popular and controversial novelists in France today. His writings have won him such distinctions as the Prix Jules Verne (1963), the Prix Chateaubriand (1979), and the Grand Prix du Roman, awarded by the Académie Française (1982). He is a highly visible member of the French literati who appears often on television talk shows, grants interviews to major dailies and magazines, and stages dramatic productions in Paris and Brussels nearly every year.

Born 7 November 1932 in Paris of White Russian parents, Nicholas and Tatiana Porokhovstchikoff Volkoff, Vladimir Volkoff grew up among Russian immigrants, shielded by his family from the culture in which they were exiled. Eventually, he was educated in French schools, taking his...