Grard De Villiers

Vocation

Notable

French writer, journalist and editor. After working as a foreign correspondent until 1965, Villiers 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 Royal Highness" (HRH). In addition, the British Special Air Service (SAS) is the principal special forces unit of the British Army. As of 2013, Villiers had written 197 novels, selling more than 150 million books, worldwide which would make it one of the top-selling series in history, on a par with Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. S.A.S. may be the longest-running fiction series ever written by a single author which are popular in Germany, Russia, Turkey and Japan, as well as in France. He has published as many as four per year. Villiers is well-known for writing novels in tune with contemporary events, such as wars or terrorist threats. His mastery of political intrigue has sometimes led him to publish books that anticipate crisis events. These included portrayals of the assassinations of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Due to tips from spies, he was nearly finished writing SAS: The Hunt for Carlos when the assassin was captured. De Villiers’s books have made him very rich, and he lives in an impressively grand house. He has married four times and has two children. Link to Wikipedia biography