Raymond Oueneau (March 21, 1903, Le Havre - October 25, 1976, Neuilly)
Raymond Queneau took part in the surrealist movement from 1924 to 1929; he wrote
for La Revolution surrealiste and other publications. But he
broke with their leader André Breton for "personal reasons", as he always said. He was
one of the people, who signed the manifesto Un cadavre (1930).
(Breton's extreme homophobia was one of the points, where Queneau strongly disagreed).
Queneau described the members of the movement in his book Odile (1937),
where it's easy to identify Breton, Eluard, Péret, Naville and other surrealists.
His later career became extremely versatile: He was a mathematician, the compilator of an
encyclopaedia, a philosopher, lecturer and writer. He wrote 15 novels, poems, screenplays,
radio-plays, visual texts and translations from English to French. He was also a member
of the Collège de Pataphysique
(the science for imaginary solutions)
and founder of OuLiPo (a workshop for potential literature). His most
popular novel was Zazie dans le Metro; Louis Malle later based a
movie on this story. The book Exercices de style
with its 99 versions of one and the same little story is a typical example of his time
as a pataphysicist. This absurd humour had also a great influence
on the Monty Pythons.
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