by Annalisa Federici
This essay focuses on a comparative study of Modernist fiction and the French Nouveau Roman. Not only do these literary phenomena display some common features allowing us to regard them as manifestations of the same cultural climate, but the Nouveaux Romanciers’ explicit mention of the Modernist novelists as their admired predecessors also seems to legitimise an approach that establishes continuity and reveals interesting transnational connections. Indeed, their relationship can be assessed in terms of reception and assimilation of a model. Such a reading shows some striking analogies between Woolf’s and Sarraute’s aesthetics on the one hand, and the never-ending quests of Joyce and Butor on the other.
