Toussaint, Jean-Philippe (b. 1957). French novelist whose brief texts La Salle de bain (1985) and L'Appareil-Photo (1988) have an eerie oddness. He is much admired as belonging to a new generation of the Nouveau Roman; the term ‘minimalism’ has been used of him. Toussaint's heroes are unnaturally passive (one of them rarely leaves his bath-room); his world and his characters are viewed from an inconsequential angle. There is minute attention to detail, but causality is puzzling and free will absent: things happen, rather than being made to happen. He charms with his gentle guileless humour.

[Graham Dunstan Martin]

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.