Romain Gary was a French diplomat, novelist, film director and World War II aviator of Litvak origin. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice . Gary was born in Vilnius under the name Roman Kacew . In his books and interviews, he presented many different versions of his parents' origins, ancestry, occupation and his own childhood. His mother, Mina Owczyńska , was a Litvak actress from Švenčionys and his father was a businessman Arieh-Leib Kacew from Trakai, also a Lithuanian Jew. Arieh Leib abandoned the family in 1925 and remarried. When Gary was fourteen,... he and his mother moved to Nice, France. Gary studied law, first in Aix-en-Provence and then in Paris. He learned to pilot an aircraft in the French Air Force in Salon-de-Provence and in Avord Air Base, near Bourges. Following the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, he fled to England and under Charles de Gaulle served with the Free French Forces in Europe and North Africa.
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| Birthdate: | May 8, 1914 |
| Birthplace: | Vilnius |
| Date of death: | December 2, 1980 |
| Religion: | Judaism |
| Also known as: | Roman Kacew |