Alain Robbe-Grillet

EDMUND JOSEPH SMYTH (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Ed. by Tim Unwin, University of Bristol, David Houston Jones, University of Exeter
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

Born 18 Aug 1922
Died 18 Feb 2008
Activity 1949-2008

Places

Born in France
Active in France

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Film/TV Script-writer/ Screenwriter
Literary Critic/ Historian
Novelist

Resources

Alain Robbe-Grillet’s contribution to the development of contemporary writing has been seminal, both in terms of his own ground-breaking novels and essays, and as a result of his “leadership” of the nouveau roman movement of writers. From the late 1950s onwards, along with Claude Simon, Michel Butor and Nathalie Sarraute (and to some degree Marguerite Duras), this group of writers effectively challenged the prevailing orthodoxies of traditional realist and psychological fiction, and helped to create the conditions for a new aesthetic, which would have wide intellectual repercussions. The nouveau roman exerted a profound influence upon literary theory and narratology from the 1960s onwards, and helped shape structuralism, poststructuralism and postmodernism. After existentialism, the nouveau roman arguably became the most significant movement in French writing since the Second World War, embodying a concern with narrative and...

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2082 words

Citation: SMYTH, EDMUND JOSEPH. "Alain Robbe-Grillet". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 October 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3803, accessed 10 June 2026.]