Roger Poidatz

Who was Roger Poidatz?

Roger Poidatz was a French writer best known by his pseudonym, Thomas Raucat.

Roger Poidatz was born in Paris and graduated from the Paris École Polytechnique, subsequently becoming a pilot in the French Air Force during World War I, flying reconnaissance aircraft. After the war, he was sent to Japan to assist in the education of local pilots.

His mission completed, Poidatz returned to Europe via China and India. During the return voyage, he revised and finished his first novel, L'honorable partie de campagne, a stylised travelogue account of his experiences and observations in Japan. Poidatz signed the book "Thomas Raucat", a French phonetical approximation of the Japanese phrase "Tomaro-ka".

L'honorable partie de campagne met with critical and commercial success, but Poidatz would publish only one more book, a collection of short stories that originally appeared in various French magazines published in 1927 as De Shang-Haï à Canton and re-issued in an enlarged edition in 1928 as Loin des blondes.