The New Novel (Nouveau Roman)

Around 1955, a group of authors published by Éditions de Minuit decided that the novel could do without plot, psychology and heroes. What remains are objects described with a surveyor's precision, gestures repeated in loops, sentences that advance by retouching: a husband's jealousy is read in the counting of chairs on a terrace. Robbe-Grillet wrote the theory, Sarraute tracked the minute movements that precede speech, Simon rebuilt a military rout in fragments. That refusal lastingly shifted the idea of what a narrative owes its reader.

works 4

• NovelJealousyLa JalousieAlain Robbe-Grillet · 1957A description that returns again and again to the same objects and the same gestures, without any narrator declaring himself or any feeling being named.Literature
• NovelChanging TrackLa ModificationMichel Butor · 1957Over the course of a train journey between two cities, a man goes back over a plan he thought he had given up.Literature
• NovelThe Flanders RoadLa Route des FlandresClaude Simon · 1960A cavalryman who survived the rout of 1940 tries to understand the death of his captain.Literature
• NarrativeChildhoodEnfanceNathalie Sarraute · 1983An old woman rediscovers her childhood in dialogue with an inner voice that casts doubt on every memory.Literature