Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (October 29, 1882 January 31, 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II.[1]
Born in Bellac, Haute-Vienne, Giraudoux's father, Léger Giraudoux, worked for the Ministry of Transportation. Giraudoux studied at the Lycée Lakanal in Paris and, upon graduation, traveled extensively around Europe. After his return to France in 1910, Giraudoux accepted a position with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With the outbreak of World War I, he served with honors, and in 1915, he became the first writer ever to be awarded the wartime Legion of Honor.[2]
He was married in 1918, and in the subsequent period between the two World Wars, Giraudoux produced the majority of his writing. He first achieved literary success through several of his novels, notably Siegfried et le Limousin (1922) and Eglantine (1927), but it is his plays that gained him international renown. A meeting with Louis Jouvet, in 1928, stimulated his writing.
Before World War II, he published in 1939 a highly antisemitic political essay called "Pleins pouvoirs" (Full power).
He is buried in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Giraudoux