Raymond Queneau (February 21, 1903 – October 25, 1976) was a French poet and novelist. February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... October 25 is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 67 days remaining. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Poet is a term applied to a person who composes poetry, including extended forms such as dramatic verse. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ...

Biography

Born in Le Havre, Normandy, Queneau was the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot. He received his first baccalauréat in 1919 for Latin and Greek, and a second in 1920 for philosophy, then studied at the Sorbonne (1921–1923) where he was a fair student of both letters and mathematics, graduating with certificates in philosophy and psychology. In 1924 he met and briefly joined the Surrealists, but found that their approach of letting the unconscious mind create did not suit him, and he broke with André Breton in 1929. Queneau performed military service as a zouave in Algeria and Morocco during the years 1925–1926. He married Janine Kahn in 1928, with whom he had a single son Jean-Marie in 1934, and remained with her until her death in 1972. Queneau was drafted in 1939 but demobilized in 1940, and through the remainder of World War II, he and his family lived with the painter Elie Lascaux in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat. Le Havre is a city in Normandy, northern France, on the English Channel, at the mouth of the Seine. ... Flag of Normandy Mont Saint Michel is a historic pilgrimage site and a symbol of Normandy Normandy is a geographical region in northern France. ... 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ... The Sorbonne, Paris, in a 17th century engraving The historic University of Paris (French: Université de Paris) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was in 1970 reorganized as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII). ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Surrealism is an artistic movement and an aesthetic philosophy that aims for the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative powers of the subconscious. ... André Breton (February 18, 1896 – September 28, 1966) was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist. ... -1... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year that started on a Tuesday. ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 7 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War II, also known as the Second World War (sometimes WW2 or WWII or World War Two), was a mid-20th century conflict that engulfed much of the... Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat is a village and commune of the Haute-Vienne département, in the Limousin région of France. ...

Queneau spent much of his life working for French publisher Gallimard, where he began as a reader in 1938, rose to be general secretary, and eventually became director of l’Encyclopédie de la Pléiade in 1956. During some of this time, he also taught at l’École nouvelle de Neuilly. He entered the Collège de ‘Pataphysique in 1950, where he became Satrap, and was elected to the Académie Goncourt in 1951, l’Académie de l’Humour in 1952, and the jury of the Cannes Film Festival 1955–1957. Éditions Gallimard is the second most important French publisher, and probably the most respected. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pataphysics or pataphysics, an absurdist concept coined by the French writer Alfred Jarry, is a philosophy dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Académie Goncourt is a literary organization based in Paris, France that was created by French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt in opposition to the then existing policies towards writers by the Académie française. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Palais des Festivals (2000) The Cannes Film Festival (French: le Festival international du film de Cannes or simply le Festival de Cannes) is the worlds most prestigious film festival, first held from September 20 to October 5, 1946 in the resort town of Cannes, in the south of... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

During this time, Queneau also acted as a translator, notably for Amos Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard (l'Ivrogne dans la brousse) in 1953. Additionally, he edited and published Alexandre Kojève's lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Queneau had been a student of Kojève's during the 1930s and was, during this period, also close to Georges Bataille. Translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language — the source text — and the production, in another language, of a new, equivalent text — the target text, or translation. ... Amos Tutuola (June 20, 1920 - June 8, 1997) was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based on Yoruba folk-tales. ... Alexandre Kojève (Alexandre Vladimirovitch Kojevnikov) (April 28, 1902 - 1968) was a Marxist and Hegelian political philosopher, who had a substantial impact on intellectual life in France in the 1930s. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770–November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... George Bataille Georges Bataille (September 16, 1897 – July 9, 1962) was a French writer, anthropologist and philosopher, though he avoided this last term himself. ...

As an author, Queneau came to general attention in France with the publication in 1959 of his novel Zazie dans le métro, and with the film adaptation by Louis Malle in 1960 at the height of the Nouvelle Vague movement in French film. Zazie explores colloquial language as opposed to 'standard' written French; a distinction which is perhaps more marked in French than in some other languages. The first word of the book, the alarmingly long "Doukipudonktan" is a phonetic transcription of "D'où qu'ils puent donc tant ?" "Why do they stink so much?". 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Zazie in the Metro – or simply Zazie, depending on the translation – (original French title: Zazie dans le métro), a French novel written in 1959, was the first major success of author Raymond Queneau. ... Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed. ... Louis Malle (October 30, 1932 - November 23, 1995) was a French film director. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ...

Even before the founding of the Oulipo in 1960, Queneau was attracted to mathematics as a source of inspiration. He became a member of la Société mathématique de France in 1948. Elements of a text, including seemingly trivial details such as the number of chapters, were things that had to be predetermined, perhaps even calculated. Perhaps not surprisingly, a late work, Les fondements de la littérature d’après David Hilbert (1976), attempts to explore the foundations of literature by quasi-mathematical derivations from certain textual axioms. Oulipo stands for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, which translates roughly as workshop of potential literature. It is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians, and seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Mathematics is often defined as the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... David Hilbert David Hilbert (January 23, 1862–February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician born in Wehlau, near Königsberg, Prussia (now Znamensk, near Kaliningrad, Russia) who is recognized as one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

One of Queneau's most influential works is Exercises in Style, which tells the simple story of a man seeing the same stranger twice in one day. What makes the book unique -- and a widely-used writing text -- is that it tells that very short story in 99 different ways, demonstratinmg the tremendous varity of styles in which storytelling can take place. A graphical homage to Queneau, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, a graphical story adaptation of the book's concept by Matt Madden, was published in 2005. Exercises in Style, written by Raymond Queneau (in French, the original title is Exercices de style) is a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, each in a different style. ... Matt Madden (b. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Queneau is buried with his parents in the old cemetery of Juvisy-sur-Orge, in Essone outside Paris. Juvisy-sur-Orge is a commune of the Essonne département in France. ...

Bibliography

Novels

• Le Chiendent or The bark-tree (1933)
• Gueule de pierre (1934).
• Les Derniers jours or The last days (1936)
• Odile (1937)
• Les Enfants du Limon (1938)
• Un Rude hiver (1939) or A Hard Winter (1948)
• Les temps mêlés (1941)
• Pierrot mon ami or Pierrot (1942)
• Si tu t’imagines (1942)
• Loin de Rueil or The skin of dreams (1944)
• En passant (1944)
• On est toujours trop bon avec les femmes or We always treat women too well (1947)
• Saint-Glinglin (1948)
• Le Journal intime de Sally Mara (1950)
• Le Dimanche de la vie or The Sunday of life (1952)
• Zazie dans le métro or Zazie in the metro (1959)
• Les Fleurs bleues or Between blue and blue (1965)
• Le Vol d'Icare or The flight of Icarus (1968)

1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about the year. ... This article is about the year. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Zazie in the Metro – or simply Zazie, depending on the translation – (original French title: Zazie dans le métro), a French novel written in 1959, was the first major success of author Raymond Queneau. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Between blue and blue or The blue flowers (original French novel written by Raymond Queneau in 1965. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ...

Poetry

• Chêne et chien (1937)
• Les Ziaux (1943)
• L'Instant fatal (1946)
• Petite cosmogonie portative (1950)
• Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes or Hundred Thousand Billion Poems (1961)
• Le chien à la mandoline (1965)
• Battre la campagne or Beating the bushes (1967)
• Courir les rues or Pounding the pavements (1967)
• Fendre les flots (1969)
• Morale élémentaire (1975)

1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) is a common year starting on Friday. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Raymond Queneau’s Hundred Thousand Billion Poems or One hundred million million poems (original French title: Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes), published in 1961, is a set of ten sonnets. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...

Essays and articles

• Bâtons, chiffres et lettres (1950)
• Pour Une Bibliothèque Idéale (1956)
• Entretiens avec Georges Charbonnier (1962)
• Bords (1963)
• Une Histoire modèle (1966)
• Le Voyage en Grèce (1973)
• Traité des vertus démocratiques (1993)

1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar) // Events January January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...

Other

• Un Cadavre (1930) with Jacques Baron, Georges Bataille, J.-A. Boiffard, Robert Desnos, Michel Leiris, Georges Limbour, Max Morise, Jacques Prévert, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, and Roger Vitrac.
• Exercises de Style or Exercises in style (1947)
• Les fondements de la littérature d’après David Hilbert (1976)
• Contes et propos (1981)
• Journal 1939-1940 (1986)
• Journaux 1914-1965 (1996)

1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... George Bataille Georges Bataille (September 16, 1897 – July 9, 1962) was a French writer, anthropologist and philosopher, though he avoided this last term himself. ... Robert Desnos (July 4, 1900 - June 8, 1945) was a French surrealist poet. ... Jacques Prévert (February 4, 1900 in Neuilly-sur-Seine - April 11, 1977 in Omonville-la-Petite) was a French poet and screenwriter. ... Exercises in Style, written by Raymond Queneau (in French, the original title is Exercices de style) is a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, each in a different style. ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... David Hilbert David Hilbert (January 23, 1862–February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician born in Wehlau, near Königsberg, Prussia (now Znamensk, near Kaliningrad, Russia) who is recognized as one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...

External links

• Life and works: http://www.queneau.net/
• Periodicals: http://www.amis-auteurs-nicaise.gallimard.fr/html/autgall/02103_t.htm
• Interview: http://www.centerforbookculture.org/interviews/interview_queneau.html
• Article: http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/queneau.html