num_pages: 560
description: “A modern classic of courage and excitement.” — The New Yorker • The source for the iconic prison-escape film starring Steve McQueen Henri Charrière, nicknamed "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   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 first 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. “A first-class adventure story.” —  New York Review of Books
language: English
title: Papillon
titlecomplete: Papillon
genres: Crime, History, Classics, Adventure, Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, France, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 68171
places: Devil's Island, Paris, France, French Guiana
series: Papillon
publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks