Böcker av Alain Robbe-Grillet

Written in 1949 but only published in 1979, Robbe-Grillet's first novel is a disquieting and satirical avant-garde political thriller which bridges the gap between traditional novel and the nouveau roman genre he would later espouse and make famous.

This brilliantly executed novel, which showcases all the techniques that have secured Robbe-Grillet's place in the canon of Western literature, leaves behind a disturbing sense of unrest.

After a failed attempt on his life by an unknown terrorist cell, Professor Daniel Dupont decides to fake his own death. The government authorities, believing that the attack is part of a series of political assassinations, send Wallas, a recently promoted special investigator, to the provincial town where the crime took place. As he wanders the confusing streets of the town, he finds himself increasingly lost in a web of conspiracies, doppelgängers and memories.Cleverly deconstructing the detective genre, The Erasers, Alain Robbe-Grillet's first published novel, shifts between various characters and time frames, while maintaining the suspense of a conventional thriller. The result is an engrossing examination of consciousness and reality which is also one the founding texts of the nouveau roman school.

The Battle of Reichenfels has been fought and lost. The army is in flight. The enemy is expected to arrive in town at any moment. A soldier, carrying a parcel under his arm, is wandering through an unknown town. All the streets look the same, and he cannot remember the name of one where he was supposed to meet the man who had agreed to take the parcel. But he must deliver the parcel or at least get rid of it.A brilliant work from one of the finest exponents of the Nouveau Roman, In the Labyrinth showcases an inventive, hypnotic style which creates an uncanny atmosphere of déjà vu, yet undermines the reader's expectations at every turn.

In his most famous and perhaps most typical work, Robbe-Grillet explores his principal preoccupation: the meaning of reality. The novel is set on a tropical banana plantation, and the action is seen through the eyes of a narrator who never appears in person, never speaks and never acts. He is a point of observation, his personality only to be guessed at, watching every movement of the other characters' actions as they flash like moving pictures across the distorting screen of a jealous mind.The result is one of the most important and influential books of our time, a completely integrated masterpiece that has already become a classic.

This is a unique testimony to one of the most important literary friendships of our time. Robbe-Grillet, the master of the nouveau roman, considered Barthes, France's greatest postwar literary theorist and critic, as one of his very few true friends.

Includes the full French text, accompanied by French-English vocabulary. Notes and a detailed introduction in English put the work in its social and historical context.