A French writer and philosophers (1694-1778). An emblem of the Enlightenment, he was driven by a polemical spirit and an irreverent style which would earn him stays in prison and several more or less forced exiles. Engaged very quickly in a reforming vision of justice and society, he attacked Christian dogmas and the political regime in France, based on ‘divine right’, in his Philosophical Letters of 1734. Voltaire tried his hand at numerous literary genres, including the novel, theatre, as well as the fairy tale, with Zadig (1747), which forced him to go into exile in Prussia, at the invitation of Frederick II. His novel Candide (1759) denounces injustices, wars, religious fanaticism and the intolerance which affects humanity. A brilliant polemicist, he fought tirelessly for liberty, tolerance and the triumph of reason over obscurantism. The banning in France of the majority of his work (printed abroad, then reintroduced) did not prevent him from knowing great success amongst the liberal