Spitz was an engineer; he wrote several science fiction novels which were greatly influential in European science fiction. Cynical, ironic, often pessimist, influenced by Surrealism, his style is reminiscent of Pierre Boulle's.
His masterworks are considered to be La guerre des mouches, L'homme élastique, and L'œil du purgatoire. The latter, meaning "The Eye of Purgatory", is about a man whose eyes, due to an exotic bacterium, start to see things as they will appear in the future.