Papillon

"A modern classic of courage and excitement." -The New Yorker . The source for the iconic prison-escape film starring Steve McQueenHenri Charrière, nicknamed "Papillon, " for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil's Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped .