Gaston Riou

Born in Vernoux-en-Vivarais in 1883, Gaston Riou was a French writer and political figure from Ardèche. He came from a Protestant background and built a literary career that included essays, novels, and wartime testimony.

Riou is especially remembered for his account of World War I service and captivity, published as Journal d’un simple soldat and later translated into English as The Diary of a French Private. He served at the front at the beginning of the war, was taken prisoner, and drew on that experience to write with unusual immediacy about ordinary soldiers’ lives.

Alongside his writing, he was active in public life and served as a deputy for Ardèche in the 1930s and early 1940s. Sources on his life describe him as a pacifist and a strong supporter of European cooperation, interests that also shaped his political books and essays. He died in 1958 in Lablachère, in his home region of Ardèche.