The Representation of Women in the Autobiographical Novels of Raymond Queneau

Madeleine Velguth analyzes the representation of women in the first six novels of Raymond Queneau (1903-1976) in the context of the social and intellectual climate of early twentieth-century France. Her balanced approach shows how surrealism, psychoanalysis and autobiography inform Queneau’s sympathetic and finely-drawn portraits of women. Revealing previously unnoticed structures, Velguth’s study presents these works as an organic whole: six variations on the theme of the slow maturing of the man and the artist.