Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Alain Robbe-Grillet dies

His name is associated mainly with the nouveau roman phenomena, which has its origins in 1950s France and basically rejects all the main features or characteristics of the novel such as plot and emotion. Alain Robbe-Grillet also nicknamed "enfant terrible" of the French literary society died on Monday, February 18 in Caen in Normandy aged 85. The cause of death is not known. He was born in 1922 in Brest to the well-educated family of scientists and engineers and was later trained himself as an agricultural engineer. In 1953 his first novel called Les Gommes (The Erasers) was published. Robbe-Grillet became a full-time writer soon after. The most praised of his novels is probably The Voyeur from 1955 which focuses on a young girl's murder. The dialogue is very scarce and there are no inner thoughts or emotions of the characters expressed. In 1961, he was invited to write the script for Alain Resnais' film L'Année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad), which was later highly acclaimed by the critics and even considered as one of the best French films of 1960s. But that was not the end of his career in film industry for later he directed himself several films, including Trans-Euro-Express or Le jeu avec le feu (Playing with Fire). From 1971 to 1995 he dwelt in the United States and taught at New York University. In 2004, he was elected to Académie française but being a rebel till the end he refused to buy required outfit and make an eulogy to his predecessor and therefore he was never officially admitted to the institution.

Edited by: Katarina Bosanska

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