Nathalie Henneberg (1917–1977)

Nathalie Henneberg, née Novokovski, was born in Batumi, Georgia, to Russian parents. They fled Georgia in 1920 during the civil war that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, and emigrated first to Turkey, then to Syria, and finally to Lebanon. She became a journalist and met Charles Henneberg zu Irmelshausen Wasungen in 1936 when he was serving with the French Foreign Legion in Homs, Syria; they married the following year. They began to collaborate on a series of flamboyant science fiction novels (space operas) featuring superhero protagonists, filled with violence and romantic passion, but only his name appeared on them; she was not credited. The first book, La Naissance des Dieux (The Birth of the Gods, 1954) won what was to become the Prix Rosny-Aîné. After Charles's death in 1959, she published more novels and short stories as Nathalie-Charles Henneberg, or N-C Henneberg, and eventually used her own name, Nathalie Henneberg. La Plaie (The Wound, 1964), a sprawling 600-page epic, is considered her masterpiece.