The Surprises of Life was wrote by Georges Benjamin Clemenceau, a French journalist, physician, and statesman. Member of the Radical Party, Clemenceau served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. Leading France for most of the final year of World War I, he was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference in the aftermath of the war. Nicknamed "Le Tigre" (The Tiger), he took a very harsh position against defeated Germany and argued for the payment of reparations. This title tells the story of Mokoubamba, who became famous in Passy for his labours as a reseater of rush-bottomed chairs, weaver of mats, of baskets and hampers, mender of all things breakable, teller of tales, entertainer of the passerby, lover of all haunts where poor mortality resorts to eat and drink. An old Negro from the coast of Guinea, very black as to skin, with great velvety black eyes and the jaws of a crocodile whence issued childlike laughter.