Biography for
Alain Robbe-Grillet More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

18 August 1922, Brest, Finistère, Bretagne, France

Date of Death

18 February 2008, Caen, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France (heart ailment)

Mini Biography

Born in Brest in 1922, Alain Robbe-Grillet initially studied mathematics and biology. He graduated from the Paris-based Institut National Agronomique (National Institute of Agronomy) in 1945, and embarked on a career of scientific research in the tropics and in France. Then at age thirty, he decided to change the direction of his career and to concentrate on the thorny problem of literature. His novels were at first panned by the fashionable critics of the time, but he succeeded in winning, (along with such now famous friends as Samuel Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon, Marguerite Duras), worldwide recognition and wide readership for the last literary movement in France known as "Le Nouveau Roman" or "New Novel". His books have been translated in some thirty languages and include: Le Voyeur (1955), La jalousie (1965), La maison de rendez-vous (1965), Project pour une révolution à New York e Djinn (1981), Le miroir qui revient (1985), Les Derniers jours de Corinth (1994). At forty he emabarked on a parallel career as screen writer and film director, venturing once again in unorthodox narrative structures. Winner, with Alain Resnais, of the "Golden Lion" in Venice in 1961 for L'année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad), he won the Louis Delluc Prize two years later for L'immortelle, the first film wich he wrote and directed himself. This film was followed by Trans-Europe-Express (1966), L'homme qui ment (The Man who Lies) (1968), L'Eden et aprés (Eden and Afterwards) (1970), Glissements progressifs du plaisir (The Slow Slidings of Pleasure) (1974), Le jeu avec le feu (Playing with Fire) (1975), La belle captive (The Beautiful Captive) (1983) and The Blue Villa (1995) (The Blue Villa). He lives in seclusion in the countryside in Normandy, where he tends to his collection of cacti. Yet he continues to travel the world, and to teach modern literature and film to graduate students in several American Univerities.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

Spouse

Catherine Robbe-Grillet

(23 October 1957 - 18 February 2008) (his death)

Trade Mark

His "new novel" style disregarded traditional literary devices such as plot and chronological narrative; objects are more significant than human actions.

Trivia

Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1965

Refused to allow his novels to be made into films.

Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, volume 115, pages 373-379. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 2003.

He was inducted into France's Legion of Honor, as well as the prestigious French Academy, the official custodian of the French language. However, he refused to purchase the Academy's ceremonial robes for his induction ceremony. He also declined the tradition of giving a eulogy for his predecessor.

Wrote an original screenplay for Michelangelo Antonioni entitled "La fortresse" (The Fortress); the movie was never made.

In 2003, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Mikhail Vartanov and Krzysztof Zanussi were guests of the Summer Film School in Czech Republic.