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Which writers were associated with the nouveau roman?

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Open copy of Voltaire's Candide showing pages 242 and 243, with text in French and rough, untrimmed page edges, bound in its original blue-paper wrapper. — French literature An early version of Voltaire's *Candide* printed in London, 1759.

The nouveau roman (or "new novel") was a mid-20th-century French literary movement that systematically rejected traditional conventions such as plot, chronological narrative, character development, and the omniscient author.1

The writers most prominently associated with this group, often referred to as nouveaux romanciers, include:

Alain Robbe-Grillet12
Nathalie Sarraute13
Claude Simon1
Michel Butor1
Robert Pinget1

Marguerite Duras is also frequently associated with the movement, though she did not always embrace the label. These authors shifted the focus of fiction toward innovative stylistic structures, the material operations of language, and the exploration of subjective experience, often presenting readers with compressed or repetitive events that resist definitive interpretation. The movement was further supported by literary theorists and journals such as Tel Quel.132