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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Read this over 20 years ago and loved it. Awesome true story. Amazing ordeal. (  ) woodge | Nov 20, 2009 |  when i was in high school this was the most important novel based on real life that i had ever read. so i read it twice. then i went to see the movie,sufficed to say i still love the book and loved steve mcqueen in the movie. the novel helped shape some of my core beliefs as an adult. it is about raw determination, focus, taking chances.... ( ) doowatt34 | Jul 24, 2009 | Wonderful story about a prisoner and his decades long attempts to escape from his life sentence in a French colonial prison. The story had a lot in common with Hugo's Les Miserables in terms of his treatment by those who knew that he was an escaped convict. There were those that were kind beyond belief and others that were cruel for no good reason. Of course, throughout, there was the question of God and "his" hand in his life. (  ) keninipswich | Feb 21, 2009 | I'm tired of those adventure books, but this one is truly amazing. ( ) BichHoang | Feb 13, 2009 | Henri Charriere, AKA Papillon, was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of a man. He was sentenced to life and hard labor in a French penal colony. The man, feeling unjustly treated, was plagued by an urge to escape and seek vengeance on those that put him there. [Papillon] tells the semi-autobiographical tale surrounding these fourteen years of Charriere's life. It reads more like an adventure novel than an autobiography, and is gripping until the last page. All the while, you find yourself rooting for the convict, hoping that his plan succeeds (and one of them does, as the text makes you aware throughout). Each chapter you hope is the last one, but not because it's poorly written. You just want to see Papillon lose his shackles and fly away. This book is a must read for fans of fiction dealing with prison escapes. ( ) aethercowboy | Dec 22, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
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| Book description |
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Henri Charrière, called "Papillon," for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil's Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped . . . until Papillon. His flight to freedom remains one of the most incredible feats of human cunning, will, and endurance ever undertaken.
Charrière's astonishing autobiography, Papillon, was published in France to instant acclaim in 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape. Since then, it has become a treasured classic -- the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who would not be defeated.
(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:31:22 -0500)
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