Q 01/05

Which Paris landmark did Guy de Maupassant supposedly lunch inside daily to avoid seeing it?

A) Eiffel Tower

B) Arc de Triomphe

C) Sacré-Cœur Basilica

D) Grand Palais

Answer · why

A) Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower opponents organised before it rose: a Committee of Three Hundred artists, one for each metre of its height and with Maupassant among them...

Q 02/05

Which Hollywood hit began as a 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle, author of The Bridge over the River Kwai?

A) Fahrenheit 451

B) The Day of the Triffids

C) Planet of the Apes

D) Fantastic Voyage

Answer · why

C) Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes reached British readers under a different name: the translation of Boulle's La Planète des singes was sold there as Monkey Planet.

Q 03/05

In Les Misérables, what does Jean Valjean steal that leads to his nineteen years as a convict?

A) A gold watch

B) A bishop's silver

C) A purse of coins

D) A loaf of bread

Answer · why

D) A loaf of bread

A loaf of bread, taken to feed his sister's seven starving children, earned Valjean five years; failed escape attempts stretched the sentence to ninet...

Q 04/05

Which playwright collapsed on stage in 1673 while playing the hypochondriac in his own The Imaginary Invalid?

A) Racine

B) Corneille

C) Molière

D) Marivaux

Answer · why

C) Molière

Molière finished the performance despite a coughing fit and a haemorrhage, then died at home a few hours later; the comedy was the last play he wrote.

Q 05/05

Which French philosopher, the author of Nausea, tried to refuse the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature?

A) Henri Bergson

B) Jean-Paul Sartre

C) Maurice Merleau-Ponty

D) André Malraux

Answer · why

B) Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre said he always declined official honours, because he did not want a writer to become an institution.