Claude Farrère was a French author of novels set in such exotic locations as Istanbul, Saigon, and Nagasaki. One of his novels, Les civilisés (The Civilized) won the first Prix Goncourt, for 1905. He was elected for a chair at the Académie Française on 26 March 1935. Initially, however, he imitated his father, an infantry colonel who served in the French colonies: entering the naval academy in 1894, he was made lieutenant in 1906 and was promoted to captain in 1918. He resigned the following year to concentrate on his writing career.