Charles-François Tiphaigne de La Roche

Charles-François Tiphaigne de La Roche was a French author born in 1722 and died in 1774. The Bibliothèque nationale de France lists him as the author of 26 textual works, showing a career that ranged across fiction, satire, and speculative writing.

He is especially associated with works such as Amilec ou La graine d'hommes, L'empire des Zaziris sur les humains ou La zazirocratie, and Giphantie. The BnF describes Giphantie as a utopian novel first published anonymously, and it remains the title most often linked to his reputation as an unusually inventive writer.

Tiphaigne de La Roche was also trained as a doctor, and that medical background seems to fit the curious, idea-driven spirit of his books. Today he is often valued less as a conventional novelist than as a wonderfully original mind whose stories sit somewhere between Enlightenment satire, fantasy, and the early history of science fiction.