Gustave Flaubert is a 19th-century French writer and novelist. He is seen by critics as one of the pioneers of the realist school of literature in France and Europe.
He left university without studying law and devoted himself to writing and literature. He was born in 1821 in Rouen, a commune in the Seine department in the Normandy region in northwestern France. His hometown seems to have been the starting point in shaping his personality and style from the day he was born.