The enemy is expected to arrive in town at any moment. His last novel, Un Roman sentimental ( A Sentimental Novel ),was published in 2007.The Battle of Reichenfels has been fought and lost. He also declined to make a eulogy to his predecessor. Robbe-Grillet was inducted into France's Légion d'honneur, and was one of the 40 so-called 'immortals' of the prestigious Académie Française, the official custodian of the French language.Ī rebel to the end, he refused to buy the Académie's ceremonial outfit when he was elected to the organization in 2004. Louis and the University of New York, from 1971 to 1995. While he did not achieve worldwide literary fame, he did have his supporters in the U.S. Robbe-Grillet also sat in the director's chair, helming several movies, including 1963's L'Immortelle ( The Immortal), 1966's Trans-Europ-Express and 1968's L'Homme qui ment ( The Man Who Lies). The author was associated with the new wave of French cinema, writing the script for Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad. The New York Times Book Review called it 'a technical masterpiece, impeccably contrived.' Associated with French New Wave In 1958's La Jalousie ( Jealousy ), Robbe-Grillet chronicles a man living on a banana plantation who suspects his wife of having an affair. His 1955 effort, Le Voyeur, about a travelling watch salesman who returns to the island of his youth with a desperate goal, was also met with critical praise. It tells the story of a murder committed by the detective who has come to investigate it. After his stirring debut, Robbe-Grillet would go on to publish a dozen books in a 20-year period. His 1953 debut novel, Les Gommes ( The Erasers), is considered one of his most celebrated works.

Readers must piece together the narrative. In fact, nothing much happens in his novels, but a lot is either imagined or thought about. The style dispensed with traditional literary devices such as chronology, narrative and plot instead, focusing on objects rather than human action. Robbe-Grillet is best known for unorthodox narratives and created the 'nouveau roman' in a series of essays in the 1950s.

He studied agricultural engineering, and worked as a statistician and agronomist before landing in the literary realm. The writer also worked in film, both as a screenwriter and director. Robbe-Grillet, who pioneered a style in the 1950s and 1960s called the 'new novel,' died Monday at a hospital in Caen, Normandy, according to his publisher, Fayard.

Alain Robbe-Grillet, known as the enfant terrible of the French literary establishment, has died at age 85.

For a New Novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet