Nouveau roman
The
nouveau roman is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the title in an article in the popular French newspaper
Le Monde on May 22, 1957 to describe certain writers who experimented with style in each novel, creating an essentially new style each time. Alain Robbe-Grillet, an influential theorist as well as writer of the nouveau roman, published a series of essays on the nature and future of the novel which were later collected in
Pour un Nouveau Roman. Rejecting many of the established features of the novel to date, Robbe-Grillet regarded many earlier novelists as old-fashioned in their focus on plot, action, narrative, ideas, and character. Instead, he put forward a theory of the novel as focused on objects: the ideal
nouveau roman would be an individual version and vision of things, subordinating plot and character to the details of the world rather than enlisting the world in their service. Despite the assertions of
nouveauté, this vision of the novel can be construed as developing from earlier writers' suggestions and practice.