Djian, Philippe (b. 1949). French novelist. After a collection of short stories, 50 contre 1 (1981), a lyrical thriller, Bleu comme l'enfer (1982, filmed by Yves Boisset in 1986), and an ostensibly autobiographical novel, Zone érogène (1984), Djian caught the public imagination with 37°2 le matin (1985, filmed by Jean-Jacques Beineix in 1986); it tells of Betty, whose passionate quest for fulfilment, her own or vicariously the writer's, plunges her into madness under the narrator's lucid but powerless gaze. Maudit manège (1986) presents itself as a sequel, continuing this autobiographical vein, and Échine (1988), though the narrator is more obviously fictional, still pursues the theme of conflict between commitment to writing and the demands of lovers, friends, and family. Djian, an admirer of American writers such as Miller, Kerouac, and Brautigan, writes of drop-outs and drifters in an unidentified setting which could be his native south-west France; his books are ironically narcissistic, dealing with his personal and sexual intimacy, but tempering the apparent revelations with the reserve of a carefully crafted prose style and wry humour. Djian returned to the short story with Crocodiles (1989), and widened his scope with Lent dehors (1991) and Sotos (1993).

[Stephen Noreiko]

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