Extrême contemporain

The term "extrême contemporain" is a French expression used to indicate French literary production published in France in the last 10 years. The "extrême contemporain" is, then, an ever-shifting concept.

This term was used for the first time by French writer Michel Chaillou in 1989, in reference to an age. This simple and convenient definition hides a complex and chaotic literary situation, both from the chronological point of view (the temporal boundaries of the "extrême contemporain" are in continuous shifting) and for the hetereogeneity of present French literary production, which cannot be defined in a clear and homogeneous way. The term "extrême contemporain", therefore, is all-inclusive. The literary production of this period is characterized by a transitory quality; because of the manifolded nature of such an immense corpus of texts, the identification of specific tendencies is inevitably partial and precarious.

Therefore, to qualify the "extrême contemporain" as a literary movement is improper: it is, rather, a term of convenience.

The "extrême contemporain" arranges itself as a "literary constellation" hardly organized in schemes; it has been often found that the "extrême contemporain" follows a sort of "aesthetics of fragments", brilliantly summed up by the metaphor of the mosaic: the narration is broken into pieces, with a preference for short sentences.

The "apportionment" of knowledge is also carried out by the use of a chaotic verbal stream, the interior monologue, tropisms, repetition and endophasy. The feeling of uncertainty experience by writers leads him to put in question the notion of novel and its very form, preferring the more general notion of "récit". Then, a return to reality takes place: in Pierre Bergounioux's works, readers witness the cultural upsetting concerning generations which follow one another; François Bon describes the exclusion from social and industrial reality; many authors of crime stories, like Jean-Patrick Manchette and Didier Daeninckx, describe social and political reality, and so it does Maurice G. Dantec in his works halfway between spy stories and science fiction; on another side, Annie Ernaux's "écriture plate" ("flat writing") tries to demolish the distance between reality and its narration.

Subjects are shown in a persistent state of crisis. However, a return to everyday life and trivial habits also takes place: the attention is focused to the "outcasts of literature", like, for instance, old people. This use of triviality and everyday life expresses itself in a new sort of "minimalism": from Pierre Michon's "Vies minuscules" ("Tiny lives") fictional biografies of unknown people, to Philippe Delerm's "Plaisirs minuscules" ("Tiny pleasures"). The facets of this minimalism manifest themselves in many ways, through the triviality of the subject, through short forms, or through concise and bare phrases. On one hand, heroicized characters try to build up their own individual way against a senseless reality, so that emarginated or marginal people emerge through the building up of their own story; on the other hand, a "negative minimalism" takes place: characters stagnate in social and relational difficulties.

Some French authors of the "extrême contemporain"

* Eliette Abécassis
* Jean-Pierre Abraham
* Olivier Adam
* Emmanuel Adely
* Hafid Aggoune
* Eva Almassy
* Marc Alpozzo
* Jacques-Pierre Amette
* Jean-Pierre Andrevon
* Christine Angot
* Yann Apperry
* Claude Arnaud
* Pierre Assouline
* Alexis Aubenque
* Brigitte Aubert
* Antoine Audouard
* Yvan Audouard
* Pierre Autin-Grenier
* Ayerdhal
*François Bégaudeau
*Frédéric Beigbeder
*Pierre Bergounioux
*Arno Bertina
*Jacques A. Bertrand
*François Bon
*Michel Chaillou
*Claro (scrittore)
*Philippe Claudel
*Philippe Delerm
*Christine Deroin
*Maryline Desbiolles
*Michèle Desbordes
*Virginie Despentes
*Jean Echenoz
*Annie Ernaux
*Maxence Fermine
*Alain Fleischer
*Christian Gailly
*Sylvie Germain
*Michel Houellebecq
*Frédéric-Yves Jeannet
*Jean-Marie Laclavetine
*Camille Laurens
*Pierre Michon
*Alain Nadaud
*Claude Ollier
*Christian Oster
*Daniel Pennac
*Pascal Quignard
*Jean Rolin
*Olivier Rolin
*Tiphaine Samoyault
*Colombe Schneck
*Tanguy Viel
*Antoine Volodine
*Cécile Wajsbrot

Bibliography

*Dominique Viart, "Le roman français au XXe siècle", Paris, Hachette, 1999.
*Matteo Majorano (ed.), "Le goût du roman", Bari, B. A. Graphis, 2002.
*Matteo Majorano (ed.), "Le jeu des arts", Bari, B. A. Graphis, 2005.
*Dominique Viart, Bruno Vercier, "La littérature française au présent: Héritage, modernité, mutations", Paris, Bordas, 2005
*"Bibliographie. Études sur la prose française de l'extrême contemporain en Italie et en France (1984-2006)", Bari, B. A. Graphis, 2007 (sous presse).

ee also

* French literature
* List of French language authors

External links

* [http://www.greclet.it/ The GREC - Groupe de Recherche sur l'Extrême Contemporain]