Alain Robbe-Grillet

I write the word CONSTRUCTION, a trompe-l'oeil painting, an imaginary construction by which I name the ruins of a future deity.

Topology of a Phantom City

Works

Most works were originally published by Les Éditions de Minuit. I have included links to the publisher pages for each work when available; in the Minuit case these contains scans of the first few pages of each book. Note that Minuit has published electronic versions of some books (the list is available on their site); these are all available on Amazon (via Kindle) in the US, but even better both PDF and epub versions can be purchased for download from Numilog, and Minuit is extremely generous to make both DRM-free.

Grove Press has also released Kindle versions of some of the translated novels, but they seem to have been sloppily scanned and contain numerous typos. The translated name of each work links to the publisher page for the translation, when available.

Links on the French titles lead to pages written by me with more detailed information for that work.

Recommendations: As noted below, my four favorite novels are La Maison, Projet, Topologie and Souvenirs, which are my favorite works of literature, by far. The four are highly interrelated but can be read in any order. However La Maison is probably the easiest to start with. Another fantastic first book is Djinn, although its generation via French grammar is completely lost in English translation. It's still a lot of fun, and I recommend looking at my page on the grammar details if you are interested. Conveniently La Maison and Djinn are packaged together in the US Grove Press edition, and (in 2024) are available for only $3 on Kindle. La Jalousie, his most famous novel, is another excellent starting point. It's not nearly as fun to read as the later works (in my opinion), but it is much simpler, and still a masterpiece.

Many works, in particular translations and non-fiction, are currently out of print but should be available used or in good libraries.

Novels

Early Works (the "New Novel")

(1949; published 1978) Un régicide [Minuit] (A Regicide)

(1953) Les Gommes [Minuit] (The Erasers)

(1955) Le Voyeur [Minuit] (The Voyeur)

(1957) La Jalousie [Minuit] (Jealousy)

(1959) Dans le labyrinthe [Minuit] (In the Labyrinth)

Cinematic Novels

After a break in which Robbe-Grillet started work in film, he changed his style rather dramatically; this marks the beginning of the "New New Novel". The four novels from 1965 to 1978 form the core of his work and are my personal favorites. The first two I call the "cinematic" novels, as they very much have the feel of a film, while at the same time being amazingly anti-visual.

(1965) La Maison de rendez-vous [Minuit] (La Maison de Rendez-vous)

(1970) Projet pour une révolution à New York [Minuit] (Project for a Revolution in New York) [out of print in paperback in the US but available on Kindle]

Collage Novels

Also called "assemblage" novels, these are collages of texts originally appearing elsewhere, primarily from collaborations with other artists. Appropriately, contrasting with the previous pair of novels, these two have the feel of a painting. See each work for details of the sources.

(1976) Topologie d'une cité fantôme [Minuit] (Topology of a Phantom City)

(1978) Souvenirs du triangle d'or [Minuit] (Recollections of the Golden Triangle)

Instructional Novel

(1981) Djinn: un trou rouge entre les pavés disjoints [Minuit] (Djinn: a red hole between disjointed paving stones)

Romanesques

Robbe-Grillet's three-part imaginary autobiography.

(1985) Le Miroir qui revient [Minuit] (The Recurring Mirror)

(1988) Angélique ou l'enchantement [Minuit] (Angélique, or the Enchantment)

(1994) Les Derniers jours de Corinthe [Minuit] (The Last Days of Corinthe)

Late Works

(2001) La Reprise [Minuit] (Repetition)

(2007) Un romaine sentimental [Fayard] (A Sentimental Novel)

Ciné-Romans

[to be added]

Collaborations with artists

The texts from all of these save the Mark Tansey catalog were incorporated into Topologie d'une cité fantôme and Souvenirs du triangle d'or. See each novel for details. The Mark Tansey text appears in Les Derniers jours de Corinthe.

(1971) Rêves des jeunes filles (collaboration with David Hamilton) [Laffont]

(1972) Les Demoiselles d'Hamilton (collaboration with David Hamilton) [Laffont]

(1975) La Belle captive (using paintings by René Magritte) [Bibliothèque des Arts]

(1975) Construction d'un temple en ruine à la déesse Vanadé (collaboration with Paul Delvaux) [Éditions de Bateau-Lavoir]

(1977) Temple aux miroirs (collaboration with Irina Ionesco) [Seghers-Laffont]

(1978) Traces suspectes en surface (collaboration with Robert Rauschenberg) [Universal Limited Art Editions]

(1978) "La Cible" (preface to the catalog for the Jasper Johns exhibit at the Georges Pompidou Cultural Center and Museum in Paris, April 8 to June 4. French catalog out of print but the illustrations are identical to the 1977 American exhibition catalog with text by Michael Chrichton, also out of print but likely more readily available.

(1993) "A Graveyard of Identities and Uniforms" (contribution to Mark Tansey, edited by Judi Freeman; the text was translated by Stewart Spencer) [Los Angeles County Museum of Art · Chronicle Books]

Miscellany

(2005) Préface à une vie d'écrivain [Seuil] (Preface to a Life of a Writer)

[more to be added]