"What Is an Author?" (french: Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?, link=no) is a lecture on literary theory given at the Société Française de Philosophie on 22 February 1969 by French philosopher, sociologist and historian Michel Foucault.Bouchard, Donald F. ed., ''Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault'' (Cornell University Press, 1980), 113. The work considers the relationship between author, text, and reader; concluding that:

The Author is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes and chooses: ... The author is therefore the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning.

For many, Foucault's lecture responds to

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popula ...

' essay "

The Death of the Author "The Death of the Author" (French: ''La mort de l'auteur'') is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the inten ...

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Michel Foucault et la fonction-auteur dans "Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?"

'What is an Author?'
1969 speeches Essays in literary theory Michel Foucault {{lit-essay-stub