Under what pseudonym does Romain Gary publish the novel The Life Before Us?

The Life Before Us is one of the most famous novels in contemporary French literature and was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1975.

The Life Before Us was written by Romain Gary, a French writer of Lithuanian origin who was born in Vilnius in 1914 and died in Paris in 1980. Romain Gary wrote many novels throughout his life, several of which won prestigious awards. He was also a diplomat, a war pilot and a filmmaker. He wrote under several pen names, including Émile Ajar, Fosco Sinibaldi and Shatan Bogat, but it is under his own name that Romain Gary became known.

Pseudonyms allowed him to explore different themes and writing styles without being locked into a single literary genre and to avoid having his name associated with a single genre or writing style.

La Vie devant soi was published under the name of Émile Ajar, a pseudonym created by Romain Gary so that the novel could be judged solely on its literary value. The deception was discovered in 1980, after Gary’s death, when the Goncourt Prize was awarded to Émile Ajar, but no one came forward to receive it.