French literature generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in the French language by citizens of other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, etc. is referred to as Francophone literature.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1951.
Le Rouge et le Noir is a historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830. It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. He ultimately allows his passions to betray him.
Fantastique is a French term for a literary and cinematic genre and mode that is characterized by the intrusion of supernatural elements into the realistic framework of a story, accompanied by uncertainty about their existence. The concept comes from the French literary and critical tradition, and is distinguished from the word "fantastic", which is associated with the broader term of fantasy in the English literary tradition. According to the literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov, the fantastique is distinguished from the marvellous by the hesitation it produces between the supernatural and the natural, the possible and the impossible, and sometimes between the logical and the illogical. The marvellous, on the other hand, appeals to the supernatural in which, once the presuppositions of a magical world have been accepted, things happen in an almost normal and familiar way. The genre emerged in the 18th century and knew a golden age in 19th century Europe, particularly in France and Germany.
Richard Joseph Howard, adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz, was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied under Mark Van Doren, and where he was an emeritus professor. He lived in New York City.
Julien Gracq was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were noted for their dreamlike abstraction, elegant style and refined vocabulary. He was close to the surrealist movement, in particular its leader André Breton.
Giuseppe Berto was an Italian writer and screenwriter. He is mostly known for his novels The Sky Is Red and Incubus.
La Presqu’île is a collection of three short pieces by French writer Julien Gracq that takes its name from its second work, a novella, which is preceded by La Route and followed by Le Roi Cophetua. The Peninsula and King Cophetua have been published separately in English by Green Integer (2011) and Turtle Point Press (2003), respectively. La Route has yet to be translated into English.
"Waiting for the Barbarians" is a Greek poem by Constantine P. Cavafy. It was written in November 1898 and printed around December 1904, as a private pamphlet. This poem falls under the umbrella of historical poems Cavafy created in his anthology.
The Castle of Argol is a 1938 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. The narrative is set at a castle in Brittany, where a man has invited a friend, who also has brought a young woman. The novel is loaded with symbols and uses narrative modes from Gothic horror literature, which it blends with Hegelian thinking and stylistic traits close to the surrealist movement, including a highly abstract plot. In his "Notice to the reader", Gracq describes the book as a "demonic version" of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal.
Balcony in the Forest is a 1958 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. It tells the story of a French lieutenant, Grange, who is assigned to a concrete antitank blockhouse in the forest of the Ardennes in the autumn of 1939, where he waits with three enlisted men for World War II to reach that section of France.
A Dark Stranger is a 1945 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. It tells the story of an enigmatic guest whose presence at an isolated resort hotel in Brittany strangely affects a small group of fellow vacationers.
The Narrow Waters is a 1976 essay collection by the French writer Julien Gracq. The topic of the book is Èvre, a left tributary of the river Loire, located close to where the author grew up. The book was published by José Corti. An English translation by Ingeborg M. Kohn was published in 2004.
Reading Writing is a 1980 book by the French writer Julien Gracq. It consists of notes and fragments on the relation between reading and writing. An English translation by Jeanine Herman was published in 2006.
Luan Arif Starova was an Albanian writer who lived in North Macedonia. He published his works both in Albanian and in Macedonian. He is translated in over 20 languages around the world.
Joseph Andras is a French writer who lives in Le Havre.
Jean-René Huguenin was a French writer. He began writing articles for La Table ronde and Arts at the age of 20. In 1960, he published his first and only novel, La Côte sauvage, which became a critical success and was praised by François Mauriac and Julien Gracq. The book was published in the United States in 1961 as The Other Side of the Summer and the United Kingdom in 1963 as A Place of Shipwreck. On 22 September 1962, Huguenin died in a car accident at the age of 26.
People in the Room is a novel by Argentinian author Norah Lange, originally published in Spanish under the name Personas en la sala in 1950. The English version, translated by Charlotte Whittle, was published in August 2018 by And Other Stories. In 1959, the Argentine Writer’s Association bestowed the novel with the Gran Premio de Honor. The book was notable for diversifying existing feminine themes expected of female Argentine authors at the time into new areas.
Jacques Abeille was a French writer. Influenced by the surrealist movement, in which he participated in the 1960s and 1970s, he is best known for the novel cycle Le Cycle des contrées set in an imaginary universe that started with the publication of Jardins statuaires (1982). He has also written several collections of poetry and short stories, and is the author of erotic literature, published in part under the pseudonym Léo Barthe.
