Odyssee funebre de l'homosexuel his? Rereading Tony Duvert's Interdit de sejour

Bibliography for example, only lists a handful of studies on him. Despite Duvert's shon-li ed critical acclaim during the rwenty years of '·notoriety' he might have enjoyed as a literary figure from 1969 to 1989 (Benderson, 'Politics" 5), the relative paucity of critical engagement since then with Du ert's ceuvre "clandestine' (Simonin 423). 'honni ou oublie" (GobiUe 30), can probably also be explained l>y the author's portrayal f non-mainstream sexual relations, including homosexuality, adornasochisrn, and necrophilia. ln the wake of the "new puritanism' encouraging chastity that had emerged with ATDS in France in the 1980s (Phillips 10) Duven's unapologetic promotion in his " litterature renver ante ' ("Lecture" 13) of "pedhomophltie," the interest he hawed for what he calls the "fruit mlir" of' gan,:ons impuberes ' (L 'Enfam 2 1) coupled with the non-consensual sexual violence, the "startling" aggression and alienation" (Benderson "Diary" 11) characterizing their troubling content was shunned. As Academie Goncourt member Fran~tois ourrissier posits, the themes privileged by Duvert "sent[ ent] le soufre" (7). Indeed, as historian Anne Simonin suggests, Duvert's literary output was consequently "ecrasee par [son] opprobe" (423). Those who have been able to look beyond the controversial themes of the bulk of Duvert's works typically mention the formal innovation, the "technique savamment elaboree" (Dalmas) at their heart. Bruce Benderson, Duvert's American translator, for instance "roots" the author firmly in the nouveau roman ("Family" 8). Simonin sees Duvert first and tbremost as "1 e rivain qui [en] marque Ia sortie' (417). John Phillips believes that Duvert's style reflects a ' clear allegiance" to it (152). And reviewer Allen Thiher suggests that Duvert' s early works resemble what the prose of the poete maudit Jean Genet might have become were it to have been reV~<Titten by Alain Robbe-Grillet, the so-called "pope" of the New Novel (249). To date Duvert's creative process in and between works has been explored only by us. Focusing on Duvert's early writing technique, we draw attention to the comprehensive, if not "obsessive" revisionism that we argue is evident in the author's novels from the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s. In our study of what we deem the