Born inFrance of parents who met at theSorbonne while studying German, Tournier spent his youth inSaint-Germain-en-Laye. He learned German early, staying each summer in Germany. He studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and at the university ofTübingen and attendedMaurice de Gandillac's course. He wished to teach philosophy at high-school but, like his father, failed to obtain the Frenchagrégation.
He co-founded in 1970, with the Arles photographerLucien Clergue and the historianJean-Maurice Rouquette, theRencontres d'Arles. At the same time he produced for television some fifty issues of the monthly programChambre noire, devoted to photography interviewing a photographer for each program.
Tournier died on 18 January 2016 inChoisel, France at the age of 91.[2]
Le Roi des aulnes was made into a 1996 movieDer Unhold (The Ogre) directed byVolker Schlöndorff and has also been adapted for the stage by Tom Perrin in 2002.
William Cloonan.Michel Tournier. Twayne. 1985. 110pp.
Colin Davis.Michel Tournier: Philosophy and Fiction. Clarendon Press. 1988. 222pp.
Rachel Edwards.Myth and the Fiction of Michel Tournier and Patrick Grainville. Edwin Mellen Press. 1999. 310pp.
David Gascoigne.Michel Tournier. Berg. 1996. 234pp.
Mairi Maclean.Michel Tournier: Exploring Human Relations. Bristol Academic. 2003. 308pp.
Susan Petit.Michel Tournier's Metaphysical Fictions. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 1991. 224pp.
Pary Pezechkian-Weinberg.Michel Tournier: marginalité et création. Peter Lang. 1997. 170pp. Language: French.
David Platten.Michel Tournier and the Metaphor of Fiction. Liverpool University Press. 1999. 250pp.
Martin Roberts.Michel Tournier: Bricolage and Cultural Mythology. Anma Libri. 1994. 192pp.
Jane Kathryn Stribling.Plenitude Restored, Or, Trompe L'oeil: The Problématic of Fragmentation and Integration in the Prose Works of Pierre Jean Jouve and Michel Tournier. Peter Lang. 1998. 339pp.
Michel Tournier.The Wind Spirit: An Autobiography. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Beacon Press. 1988. 259pp.
