Voltaire was a French writer, philosopher, and satirist whose wit made him a leading voice of the Enlightenment. Born François-Marie Arouet, he wrote under a pen name that became internationally recognized. His best-known work, Candide, uses rapid adventure and sharp irony to question easy explanations of suffering and the claim that the world is arranged for the best.

Voltaire worked across an exceptional range of forms, including drama, poetry, history, essays, fiction, and correspondence. His criticism of established authority repeatedly brought him into conflict with censorship and political power. Periods away from France widened his intellectual contacts, while his reputation connected him with writers, thinkers, and rulers throughout Europe.

His writing frequently attacks religious intolerance and the misuse of power, although his own views also contain contradictions and prejudices that deserve scrutiny. Candide remains especially accessible because it gives philosophical disagreement the energy of a story, setting confident theories against unsettling experience. Across his varied work, Voltaire demonstrates the public force of literary wit, using concise argument, ridicule, and imaginative invention to make inherited assumptions available for examination.