Claude Eugène Henri Simon (; 10 October 1913 – 6 July 2005) was a French novelist and recipient of the 1985 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Biography

Claude Simon was born in Tananarive on the isle of

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. His parents were French, and his father was a career officer who was killed in the First World War. He grew up with his mother and her family in Perpignan in the middle of the wine district of Roussillon. Among his ancestors was a general from the time of the French Revolution. After secondary school at Collège Stanislas in Paris, he took courses in painting at André Lhote's academy. At 21, Simon inherited a small fortune that made him economically independent. In 1935-1936 he made his military service at the 31st

cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from ''cheval'' meaning "horse") are groups of soldiers or warriors who Horses in warfare, fight mounted on horseback. Until the 20th century, cavalry were the most mob ...

regiment in Lunéville. In 1936 he went to Barcelona and volunteered in the

International Brigades The International Brigades () were soldiers recruited and organized by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front (Spain), Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The International Bri ...

during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. This experience as well as those from the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

show up in his literary work. Simon began writing in 1936. In 1937 he travelled extensively through Spain, Germany, the Soviet Union, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Claude Simon was called up by the French army in August 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940 he took part in the battle of the

Meuse The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper ...

and on 17 May escaped a massacre on his cavalry squadron. He was taken prisoner by the Germans, but managed to escape in October 1940 and joined the resistance movement. As a refugee in Perpignan he became friends with the painters Raoul Dufy et Jean Lurçat. At the same time, he completed his first novel, ''Le Tricheur'' ("The Cheat", published in 1946), which he had started to write before the war. In 1944 he returned to Paris and the resistance movement. Claude Simon published around 20 books written in a dense,

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...

style. His 1960 novel ''La Route des Flandres'', in which he recalled his experiences in the Second World War, is often considered his finest achievement. In

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...

he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature with the citation "who in his novel combines the poet's and the painter's creativeness with a deepened awareness of time in the depiction of the human condition." Claude Simon lived in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and used to spend part of the year at Salses in the Pyrenees. To the end of his life Simon insisted on that his profession should be recorded as that of a viticulteur and not a writer, thinking grape farming was a more genuinely remedial trade than writing novels, and toning down the act of writing as no different to what manual workers do. In 1960, he was a signatory to the

Manifesto of the 121 The Manifesto of the 121 (), was an open letter signed by 121 intellectuals and published on 6 September 1960 in the magazine ''Vérité-Liberté''. It called on the French government, then headed by the Gaullist Michel Debré, and public opi ...

in favour of Algerian independence. In 1961 Claude Simon received the prize of ''

L'Express (, stylized in all caps) is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre-right in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''R� ...

'' for ''La Route des Flandres'' and in 1967 the

Prix Médicis The Prix Médicis () is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by and .

for ''Histoire''. The

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...

made him an honorary doctor in 1973.

Writing

Most of Claude Simon's writing is autobiographical, dealing with personal experiences from

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and the

, and his family history. His early novels are largely traditional in form, but with ''Le vent'' (1957) and ''L'Herbe'' (1958) he developed a style associated with the

nouveau roman The Nouveau Roman (, "new novel") is a type of French novel in the 1950s and 60s that diverged from traditional literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the term in an article in the popular French newspaper ''Le Monde'' on May 22, 1957 to describ ...

. ''La Route de Flandres'' (1960), which tells about wartime experiences, earned him the ''L'Express'' prize and international recognition. In ''Triptyque'' (1973) three different stories are mixed together without paragraph breaks. The novels ''Histoire'' (1967), ''Les Géorgiques'' (1981) and ''L'Acacia'' (1989) are largely about Simon's family history.

Style and influences

Simon is often identified with the ''

'' movement exemplified in the works of

Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the ''Nouveau Roman'' () trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simo ...

and Michel Butor, and while his fragmented narratives certainly contain some of the formal disruption characteristic of that movement (in particular ''Histoire'', 1967, and ''Triptyque'', 1973), he nevertheless retains a strong sense of narrative and character. In fact, Simon arguably has much more in common with his Modernist predecessors than with his contemporaries; in particular, the works of Marcel Proust and

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...

are a clear influence. Simon's use of self-consciously long sentences (often stretching across many pages and with parentheses sometimes interrupting a clause which is only completed pages later) can be seen to reference Proust's style, and Simon moreover makes use of certain Proustian settings (in ''La Route des Flandres'', for example, the narrator's captain de Reixach is shot by a sniper concealed behind a hawthorn hedge or ''haie d'aubépines'', a reference to the meeting between Gilberte and the narrator across a hawthorn hedge in Proust's '' À la recherche du temps perdu''). The Faulknerian influence is evident in the novels' extensive use of a fractured timeline with frequent and potentially disorienting analepsis (moments of chronological discontinuity), and of an extreme form of free indirect speech in which narrative voices (often unidentified) and streams of consciousness bleed into the words of the narration. The ghost of Faulkner looms particularly large in 1989's ''L'Acacia'', which uses a number of non-sequential calendar dates covering a wide chronological period in lieu of chapter headings, a device borrowed from Faulkner's '' The Sound and the Fury''.

Themes

Despite these influences, Simon's work is thematically and stylistically highly original. War is a constant and central theme (indeed it is present in one form or another in almost all of Simon's published works), and Simon often contrasts various individuals' experiences of different historical conflicts in a single novel; World War I and the Second World War in ''L'Acacia'' (which also takes into account the impact of war on the widows of soldiers), the

French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars () were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted French First Republic, France against Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, Habsb ...

and the Second World War in ''Les Géorgiques''. In addition, many of the novels deal with the notion of family history, those myths and legends which are passed down through generations and which conspire in Simon's work to affect the protagonists' lives. In this regard, the novels make use of a number of leitmotifs which recur in different combinations between novels (a technique also employed by

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film ''Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) ea ...

), in particular, the suicide of an eighteenth-century ancestor and the death of a contemporary relative by sniper-fire. Finally, almost all of Simon's novels feature horses; Simon was himself an accomplished equestrian and fought in a mounted regiment during World War II (the ridiculousness of mounted soldiers fighting in a mechanised war is a major theme of ''La Route des Flandres'' and ''Les Géorgiques''). Simon's principal obsession, however, is with the ways in which humans experience time (another Modernist fascination). The novels often dwell on images of old age, such as the decaying 'LSM' or the old woman (that 'flaccid and ectoplasmic Cassandra') in ''Les Géorgiques'', which are frequently seen through the uncomprehending eyes of childhood. Simon's use of family history equally attempts to show how individuals exist ''in history''—that is, how they might feel implicated in the lives and stories of their ancestors who died long ago.

Criticism

In his book, '' Orwell's Victory,'' essayist

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born ...

criticised Simon's deconstruction in ''Les Géorgiques'' of

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

's account of the

, pointing out that Orwell had fought alongside POUM, while Simon had fought "on the side of the Stalintern forces". Hitchens' criticism has itself been criticised by historian Roseanna Webster.

Seminars

Jean Ricardou (Director) : * ''Nouveau roman : hier, aujourd'hui'', Cerisy (France), 1971. * ''Claude Simon : analyse, théorie'', Cerisy (France), 1974. * ''Pour une théorie matérialiste du texte'', Cerisy (France), 1980.

Works

Novels

* ''Le Tricheur'' (1946). ''The Cheat'' * ''La Corde raide'' (1947). ''The Tightrope'' * ''Gulliver'' (1952) * ''Le Sacre du Printemps'' (1954). ''The Rite of Spring'' * ''Le Vent : tentative de restitution d'un rétable baroque'' (1957). ''The Wind'', trans. Richard Howard (Braziller, 1959) * ''L'Herbe'' (1958). ''The Grass'', trans. Richard Howard (Braziller, 1960) * ''Où chante la forêt'' (1960). ''Where Sings the Forest'', trans. Claude J. and Shelagh Simon (Dalhousie University, 1971) * ''La Route des Flandres'' (1960). ''The Flanders Road'', trans. Richard Howard (Braziller, 1961) * ''Le Palace'' (1962). ''The Palace'', trans. Richard Howard (Braziller, 1963) * ''Histoire'' (1967). ''Histoire'', trans. Richard Howard (Braziller, 1968) * ''La Bataille de Pharsale'' (1969). ''The Battle of Pharsalus'', trans. Richard Howard (Braziller, 1971 * ''Orion aveugle'' (1970). ''Blind Orion'' * ''Les Corps conducteurs'' (1971). ''Conducting Bodies'', trans. Helen R. Lane (Viking Press, 1974) * ''Triptyque'' (1973). ''Triptych'', trans. Helen R. Lane (Viking Press, 1976) * ''Leçon de choses'' (1975). ''The World About Us'', trans. Daniel Weissbort (Ontario Review Press, 1983) * ''Les Géorgiques'' (1981). ''The Georgics'', trans. Beryl and John Fletcher (Riverrun Press, 1989) * ''L'Invitation'' (1987). ''The Invitation'', trans. Jim Cross (Dalkey Archive, 1991) * ''L'Acacia'' (1989). ''The Acacia'', trans. Richard Howard (Pantheon, 1990) * ''Le Jardin des plantes'' (1997). ''The Jardin des Plantes'', trans. Jordan Stump (Northwestern University Press, 2001) * ''Le Tramway'' (2001). ''The Trolley'', trans. Richard Howard (New Press, 2002)

Other works

*''La Separation'' (1963; play, adapted from the novel ''L'Herbe''). ''The Separation'' *''Femmes : sur 23 peintures de Joan Miró'' (1966; republished as ''La Chevelure de Bérénice'', 1984). ''Berenice’s Golden Mane'', trans. Simon Green (Alyscamps, 1998)

Collected edition in French

''Œuvres'' ( Bibliothèque de la Pléiade): * Tome I (Gallimard, 2006), including ''Le Vent: Tentative de restitution d'un retable baroque'', ''La Route des Flandres'', ''Le Palace'', ''La Bataille de Pharsale'', ''La Chevelure de Bérénice'' (''Reprise du texte Femmes''), ''Triptyque'', ''Le Jardin des Plantes'', and other writings. * Tome II (Gallimard, 2013), including ''L'Herbe'', ''Histoire'', ''Les Corps conducteurs'', ''Leçon de choses'', ''Les Géorgiques'', ''L'Invitation'', ''L'Acacia'', ''Le Tramway'', and other writings.

Awards and honors

* 1960: Prix de ''

l'Express (, stylized in all caps) is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre-right in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''R� ...

'', for ''La Route des Flandres'' * 1967: