A French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Although his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, he is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's Vichy government. One of France's most prolific writers after World War II, much of his work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise.