The Butterfly Connection

In 1938, having finally reached the USA and following several dramatic attempts at escaping the penal colony in French Guiana, Rene Belbenoit; to modest acclaim, published his novel, Dry Guillotine, describing his incredible adventures of survival and escape.

Thirty-one years later, another escapee, Henri Charriere, through his book Papillon, committed his own story to paper. Within a short time, Dry Guillotine ran to thirteen reprints, which although not too shabby, couldn't match Papillon, that would go on to sell over thirteen million copies in thirty languages and be made in 1973, into a movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen. Such has been the continued interest in Charriere's story that a remake of the movie was made in 2017.

The Butterfly Connection is a comparison of elements of the two stories, challenging the veracity of Charriere's account, while separating it from that of Belbenoit, which in retrospect, as we will learn, most likely served as the inspiration behind much of Papillon.