Anne Golon was a French author best known as the creator of the Angélique series of historical adventure novels, which have been adapted into various media including manga. Born Simone Changeux on December 17, 1921 in Toulon, France, she began writing at a young age and published her first novel at eighteen under a pen name. She worked as a journalist and was sent to Africa, where in 1947 she met her future husband, Vsevolod Sergeïvich Goloubinoff, known as Serge Golon. The couple collaborated on the first Angélique novel, published in 1956, with Anne as the writer and Serge providing historical research. The series became an international success, reportedly selling over 150 million copies worldwide and translated into approximately thirty languages. Following Serge's death in 1972, Anne continued writing additional volumes until 1985. She successfully fought a legal battle to regain the rights to her work in 2006 and remained active until her death on July 14, 2017 in Versailles.

The connection between Anne Golon and the anime and manga industry stems directly from the Angélique novels. A manga adaptation titled Angélique, written and illustrated by Toshie Kihara, was serialized in the Japanese shōjo manga magazine Princess from 1977 to 1979. This series was later collected into five tankōbon volumes by publisher Akita Shoten. For this adaptation, Anne Golon is officially credited as the original creator. She was also a longtime admirer of bande dessinée and manga as an art form. When a second manga adaptation was developed in the 2010s, she expressed great enthusiasm for the project. This series, a global manga published by Casterman from 2015 to 2016, was written by Olivier Milhaud and illustrated by Dara. Golon stated that she was won over by the sensitivity and poetry of the artwork, noting the rare ability to represent women and children accurately, as well as the cinematic quality of the composition. She described the work as a piece of art and expressed happiness that a new public would discover Angélique through the manga format.

Her significance within the industry lies in being the originating force behind a literary property that has proven adaptable across cultures and media, including Japanese manga. The success of the Angélique novels led to numerous adaptations beyond manga, including five feature films in the 1960s, a later film in 2013, as well as theatrical productions and opera. Golon defended her character as a determined, freedom-loving woman, and pushed back against interpretations she felt made the character overly sentimental or misrepresented. The persistence of Angélique in popular culture, from its original publication in the 1950s through manga adaptations decades later, demonstrates the lasting appeal of the characters and stories she created.