Butor, Michel

Michel Butor, French novelist, essayist and scholar, was born in 1926 in Monsen-Baroeul, Nord, France. He was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris during the 1940s and held teaching positions at a number of European and American universities throughout his academic career. He was an international figure in the development of the contemporary novel as a literary genre. Specifically, Butor expounded the nouveau roman, or 'new novel, ' in which novelists sought to change the expectations of readers by ignoring conventions of plot, dialogue and dramatic progress. Butor's novel, La Modification (1957; US title A Change of heart) is his best known and most widely accepted successful application of the nouveau roman style. Butor spent two years in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969-1970 and 1973-1974. During those academic years, Butor taught French literature at the University of New Mexico and also held the title of 'Writer-in-Residence' from 1973-1974.

Michel Butor (db. 1926) is a leading philosophical writer in the French "new novel" school and a university professor in the United States as well as in Europe.