Papillon (73 page)

As for Dreyfus himself, in 1899 he was finally brought back to France for a retrial after five long years on Devil’s Island. Diaries of his time in French Guiana were published in 1901 as
Five Years of My Life
. While his innocence was not now in doubt, he was nonetheless made to wait until 1906 for a full pardon. Restored to his former rank, he went on to perform with distinction in defense of the country that had used him so badly.

Dreyfus’s diaries are still in print. Further information can be found in
The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus
, by Jean-Denis Bredin.

I
N
1973
Papillon
was adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for a high-profile movie of the same name. Trumbo is perhaps more famous for being blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and for having scripted
Spartacus
and
Roman Holiday
. Directed by Franklin Schaffner
(Planet of the Apes
and the war biopic
Patton)
,
Papillon
loosely followed the structure of Charrière’s book and starred Steve McQueen as the film’s eponymous hero and Dustin Hoffman—already a big name thanks to his roles in
The Graduate
and
Midnight Cowboy
—as Papillon’s friend and accomplice Dega. The film is notable for the brooding tropical heat of its cinematography, as well as for the strong performances of its two leads. Steve McQueen, of course, was the premier action hero of his day. He often played tough, uncompromising hard cases, but McQueen was praised for a hitherto unseen vulnerable side that he brought to the character as Papillon slowly wastes away in solitary confinement. For those curious to see Charrière in the flesh but who are unable to acquire a copy of
The Butterfly Affair
, the
DVD
of
Papillon
also contains a short feature entitled “Magnificent Rebel” that includes footage of Henri Charrière on set and reminiscing about his time on Devil’s Island.

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nobel Prize-winning author Solzhenitsyn first came to the attention of the West in 1962 with this short, stunning novella about a typical day in a Stalinist labor camp as experienced by ordinary prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Solzhenitsyn had himself spent a decade in a gulag for making derogatory remarks about Stalin in a letter, and his account of inching through the bitter cold, surviving from minute to minute, is every bit as powerful as Charrière’s account of his time in solitary confinement on the Île Royale.

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

by Alexandre Dumas

Falsely accused of treason, Edmond Dantés is arrested on his wedding day and imprisoned in the imposing island fortress of If. After staging a dramatic escape he sets out to discover the fabulous treasure of Monte Cristo and revenge himself on those responsible for his imprisonment. Based on a true story,
The Count of Monte Cristo
is one of the great literary adventure novels and a masterpiece about one man’s obsession with escape and vengeance.

“HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION”

by Stephen King

Winning movie fame as
The Shawshank Redemption
by Frank Darabont, Stephen King’s fairy tale of confinement and hope originally appeared in King’s 1982 collection
Different Seasons
alongside “The Body,” which would later be brought to film as
Stand by Me
. “Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” follows the story of terribly abused prisoner Andy Dufresne, who—both metaphorically and in reality—escapes into dreams of the movies. As the movie poster said: “Fear can hold you prisoner.... Hope can set you free.”

DISCIPLINE & PUNISH: THE BIRTH OF THE PRISON

by Michel Foucault

Both an in-depth history of the French penal system in particular and a peerless dissection of the rationale behind Western punishment systems in general,
Discipline & Punish
is a tour de force that draws from history, philosophy, and social science to establish
why
societies choose to imprison their citizens. It also contains fascinating insight into the interplay between prisoner and state—and why even the most brutal criminals are capable of being seen as heroes.

LES QUATRE VÉRITÉS DE PAPILLON

by Georges Ménager

Only available in French, this book looks into details of the police investigations into the murder that led to Papillon’s imprisonment.

SPACE IN THE TROPICS: FROM CONVICTS TO ROCKETS IN FRENCH GUIANA

by Peter Redfield

A gripping book that compares the Franco-European Ariane rocket program with the penal experiments on Devil’s Island.

MR. NICE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

by Howard Marks (Canongate Books, 2002)

During the mid-1980s Howard Marks had forty-three aliases, eighty-nine phone lines, and owned twenty-five companies trading throughout the world. Bars, recording studios, offshore banks—all were money laundering vehicles serving his core business: dope dealing. At the height of Marks’s career he was smuggling consignments of up to thirty tons of marijuana and had contact with organizations as diverse as MI6, the CIA, the IRA, and the Mafia. He was busted following a worldwide operation by the DEA and sentenced to serve twenty-five years in prison at Terre Haute Penitentiary in Indiana. He was released in April 1995 after serving seven years of his sentence. Told with humor, charm, and candor and featuring pages of photographs,
Mr. Nice
is his own extraordinary story.
Mr. Nice
is one of the bestselling memoirs in Britain in recent memory, topping both
The Sunday Times
(London) hardcover and paperback bestseller lists. It’s been translated into eight languages, and this edition offers American readers their first-ever opportunity to read this riveting book.

“Frequently hilarious, occasionally sad, and often surreal.”

—
GQ

“A folk legend … Howard Marks has huge charisma. He sounds like Richard Burton and looks like a Rolling Stone.”

—
The Daily Mail
(London)

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*
I wrote this introduction in May 1969. The book was published in France in June of that same year. By April of 1970 it had sold one million copies there. As is perhaps inevitable when a writer has sold so phenomenally and has been so lionized as M. Charrière, the authenticity of his work has recently been questioned in some quarters. On March 17, 1970, a press conference was held in Pans by Editions Laffont and the author for the purpose of answering such charges. Charrière reaffirmed, allowing for lapses of memory in some instances as to dates and minor facts, that the book was as accurate and true as he could make it. After all, as he said, he did not go into “that hell” with a typewriter.

*
Worth about $1250 in 1970.

*
Chief Executioner in 1932.