Nathalie Sarraute, Fiction and Theory: Questions of Difference

Cambridge Studies in French

by Ann Jefferson

Nathalie Sarraute, initially hailed as a leading theorist and exemplar of the nouveau roman, is now regarded as a major French novelist in her own right. Ann Jefferson offers a new perspective on Sarraute's entire oeuvre--her fiction, her outstanding autobiography Enfance and her influential critical writings--by focusing on the crucial issue of difference that emerges as one of her central preoccupations. Jefferson explores Sarraute's fundamental ambivalence to differences of various kinds, including questions of gender and genre.

232 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 1996

About the author

A.M. Jefferson is Emeritus Professor of French at New College, Oxford. She has written extensively on French literature, edited works by Stendhal and Nathalie Sarraute, and translated books by Pierre Michon and Éric Vuillard.