1 Still prolific at 94, Julien Green is a French-born cultural hybrid whose memories of the American Deep South have inspired a new novel about a love-starved Georgia belle during the Civil War.
2 The first American citizen to be inducted into the prestigious Academie Francaise, Green has carved a unique place among the French literary elite, with dozens of novels, plays, essays and 15 volumes of his private diary.
3 'Dixie,' his latest novel, features a sultry Southern widow, still hungry for love, drowning her sorrow in laudanum and sipping mint juleps served by devoted slaves while canons boom in nearby cotton fields.
4 The 380-page novel, published Jan. 4, was well-received by critics. More than 30,000 copies have been sold -- 'a very healthy figure at this time of year,' according to the publisher.
5 The novel is set on a rich plantation near Savannah, Georgia, during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865). With the men already in uniform, the women spend their days in idle gossip, drinking iced tea while their children play soldier in the woods.
6 The novel opens with Elizabeth Jones, a beautiful, 28-year-old mother of two, mourning her fallen husband and downing sedatives administered by her French governess, Miss Lewellyn.
7 Miss Elizabeth is no Scarlett O'Hara, but 'Dixie' portrays the same carefree nonchalance and elegance of the South as 'Gone With the Wind.'
8 Green was born in 1900, the son of an export-import dealer from Virginia who settled in France in 1895 with his Georgia-born wife. He spoke English at home, and was regaled by his mother with stories of the old South, its lush plantations and easy living.
9 He received a French public school education and joined the French army at 18. Toward the end of World War I, he drove ambulances on the French and Italian fronts.
10 Green's first visit to the United States was at 20, when he entered the University of Virginia. Though he only stayed two years, his American experience and deep feelings about the war-ravaged South were to influence his later writings.
11 'I wanted to capture the poetry and the melancholy of the South,' Green told the daily Le Figaro. His publisher told The Associated Press that Green would not grant any other interview.
12 He denied that the novel was apology for the South or for slavery.
13 'I simply want to bring the South back to life, with its taste for elegance, which I'm proud enough to want to share,' he said in the interview with Le Figaro.
14 Green said his parents were responsible for inculcating him with Southern values and traditions, and likened his heroine's generous spirit and sense of humor to his mother's.
15 Though one of Green's major themes is that carnal relations lead to emotional and moral chaos, Elizabeth nearly wastes away until she finds physical love in the arms of a lowly soldier.
16 'I want someone to love . someone to love,' she wails, 'because that's the only thing I like in life! Love, love!'
17 Unfortunately, Green never really gives readers much insight into Elizabeth's passion, which leaves her a wooden and forgettable character.
18 'Love is my main character, the central figure in all my books, and in life in general,' Green said.
19 Green, who turns 95 in September, is one of France's most prolific living writers, producing 17 novels, four short stories, five plays, an autobiography, numerous biographies and essays, 15 volumes of his daily journal, all in French. He also has written five works in English.
20 He said he has no plans to give up writing and attributes his longevity and creativity to a Spartan lifestyle -- no radio or television, and a single newspaper to keep up on world affairs. He says he does not enjoy going out, preferring to entertain friends at home.
21 'Dixie,' he said, was based on his own childhood and family members. Charlie Jones, Elizabeth's uncle, is named for Green's own grandfather Charles Jones Green, an English landowner who outwitted Northern spies to smuggle arms to Southern troops via Jamaica.
22 Writing in Le Figaro, literary critic Renaud Matignon praised Green's fresh approach to love and nature, but suggested he was 'rehashing' the Civil War.
23 'It seems that a part of him can't give up those childhood images,' Matignon wrote.

Still prolific at 94 , Julien Green is a French - born cultural hybrid whose memories of the American Deep South have inspired a new novel about a love - starved Georgia belle during the Civil War .
French - born
How is Julien culturally familiar with the deep south?