BUTOR, MICHEL

born Sept. 14, 1926, Mons-en-Baroeul, France in full Michel-Marie-Franois-Butor French novelist and essayist, one of the leading exponents of the nouveau roman (new novel), the avant-garde French novel that emerged in the 1950s. Butor studied at the Sorbonne and from 1951 to 1953 was a lecturer at the University of Manchester. He was subsequently a teacher in Thessalonki, Greece (195455), Geneva, Switz. (195657 and 197591), and numerous other cities in the United States and France. After an early experimental novel, Passage de Milan (1954; Milan Passage), Butor won critical acclaim with L'Emploi du temps (1956; Passing Time), a complex evocation of his gloomy season in Manchester. With his third novel, La Modification (1957; U.K. title Second Thoughts, U.S. title A Change of Heart), Butor perfected his experimental technique and was considered to have arrived at his full powers. The work won the Prix Renaudot. Butor, who regarded the novel as a blend of philosophy and poetry, owed much in his fiction to the influence of James Joyce. A feature common to all his novels is a rigid structure. Passage de Milan takes place in a single day in a tenement building, and in La Modification the setting is a journey in a compartment of the Paris-Rome express. Degrs (1960; Degrees), his fourth novel, imposes on the action the rigid pattern of a college timetable. His later fiction includes Intervalle (1973) and Explorations (1981; with verse). Outstanding among his nonfiction works are Mobile (1962), a prose-rhapsody aiming to capture the spirit of the United States, and Description de San Marco (1963; Description of San Marco). Butor's later works include Portrait de l'artiste en jeune singe (1967; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Monkey), Boomerang (1978), and Improvisations sur Rimbaud (1989). He also published several collections of poetry and essays.