''Pour un nouveau roman'' (translated as ''For a New Novel'' (US), ''Towards a New Novel'' (UK)) is a 1963 collection of theoretical writings by French author

Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the '' Nouveau Roman'' (new novel) trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and ...

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Les Éditions de Minuit Les Éditions de Minuit (, ''Midnight Press'') is a French publishing house. It was founded in 1941, during the French Resistance of World War II, and is still publishing books today. History Les Éditions de Minuit was founded by writer and i ...

, the articles which constitute the book had been published between 1955 and 1963 in a number of French publications, and some were revised prior to inclusion in the book. In it, Robbe-Grillet argues (with reference to his own novels and those of such prominent

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

writers as

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous E ...

and Samuel Beckett) that the novel form must be re-imagined by each generation. He takes issue with the common idea that the 19th century bourgeois novel (exemplified by Balzac) is the benchmark by which all novels must be judged. After all, he argues, each new form of artistic expression was once new and strange. It is the obligation of the artist to create new and strange artworks which, in turn, create reference points to judge future artworks (and which will by necessity be useless to do so). Controversially, he argues against "several obsolete notions", such as character, story, and depth. The English translation of the collection by

Richard Howard Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022; adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz) was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, w ...

was originally published in the US by Grove Press, and in the UK by

Calder Publishing Calder Publications is a publisher of books. Since 1949, the company has published many books on all the arts, particularly subjects such as opera and painting, the theatre and critical and philosophical theory. Calder's authors have achieve ...

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