2013 Pulitzer Prize Winner, Biography. Born to a black slave mother and a fugitive white French nobleman in present-day Haiti, Alex Dumas made his way to Paris. There he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy androse to become a successful general. His swashbuckling exploits appear in his famous son's novel, The Three Musketeers, and his ultimate tragic fate inspired The Count of Monte Cristo.