Nobel Prize Winner Claude Simon

Nobel laureate Claude Simon, a pioneer of the experimental "new novel" style of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The Swedish Academy that awarded Simon the 1985 Nobel Prize in literature cited the novel "Les Georgiques" ("The Georgics") as perhaps his most important work. The 1981 novel depicts Simon's experience with the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.

At the time, he was the first Frenchman to win the Nobel since playwright and author Jean-Paul Sartre was honored with the award but turned it down in 1964.

Born of French parents on Oct. 10, 1913, in Tananarive, on the island of Madagascar, Simon began writing in 1945 with "Le Tricheur" ("The Cheat,") an existential fable that resembled Albert Camus' "The Stranger."

The author of more than 20 works, his major literary breakthrough as an exponent of the French "nouveau roman" or new novel style came in 1960, with "La Route Des Flandres" ("The Flanders Road") set during World War II.

The "new novel" style dispensed with such literary norms as plot and character development. Simon's novels present characters in a state of emotional turmoil, often obsessed with memories.

Simon's intricate, free-flowing style makes his works difficult to read — said to partly explain why he was not well-known even in France. Some critics have compared his jumbled chronology and abrupt transitions to the techniques of William Faulkner, the American author.

"French literature has lost one of its greatest authors," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a statement from his office. "Claude Simon will remain as one of the great novelists of collective and individual memory."

Simon once said of his own work: "I am incapable of making up a story. All I write is taken directly from real life, I only copy reality."

As a young man, Simon showed a passion for photography and painting. At 23, he joined the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. In World War II, he fought in the 1940 Battle of the Meuse and was taken prisoner, but later escaped and joined the Resistance.

Simon's last novel, "The Trolley" of 2001, recalled his life as a boy in Perpignan, and depicted how the foundation of a person's life is what he remembers.

"People will get to understand my work sooner or later. This is nothing new, that some authors are considered difficult," he was quoted by Swedish news agency TT as saying in 1985.

By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 42 minutes ago