Papillon

Papillon is a novel written by Henri Charrière, first published in France on 30 April 1969. Papillon is Charrière's nickname. The novel supposedly details Papillon's incarceration and subsequent escape from the French penal colony of French Guiana, and covers a 14-year period between 1931 and 1945. While Charrière claimed that Papillon was largely true, modern researchers believe that much of the book's material came from other inmates, rather than Charrière himself.