Tournier, Michel (Vol. 23) - Introduction

Michel Tournier 1924–

French novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

Tournier's writing reflects his fascination with mythic structure and symbolism. Friday, which won the Prix du Roman from the Académie Française, is a twentieth-century retelling of Robinson Crusoe in which Tournier uses Freudian and Jungian theory along with anthropology to examine the isolation of individuals in modern society. In Tournier's novel The Erl-King, a French soldier imagines that his personal destiny corresponds to the evolution of the Nazi regime. His recent novel Gemini exemplifies the philosophically speculative nature of his fiction.

(See also CLC, Vol. 6; Contemporary Authors, Vols. 49-52; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 3; and Something about the Author, Vol. 23.)