RAYMOND
QUENEAU (1903-1976), French writer, poet, encyclopedist, and critic, wrote seventeen novels, including Zazie dons le M[acute{e}]tro and Le Chiendent.
New Directions was the publisher--and almost always the first m publisher in the United States--of Apollinaire, Djuna Barnes, Bei Dao, Borges, Paul Bowles, Brecht, Camus, Cela, Celine, Cendrars, Char, Cocteau, Dahlberg, Daumal, Durrell, Eluard, Endo, Garcia Lorca, Hawkes, Hesse, Huidobro, Isherwood, Jarry, Joyce, Kafka, Lautreamont, Merton, Michaux, Henry Miller, Mishima, Montale, Nabokov, Neruda, Parra, Pasternak, Paz,
Queneau, Raja Rao, Reverdy, Rilke, Rimbaud, Sartre, Sebald, Supervielle, Svevo, Tabucchi, Dylan Thomas, Ungaretti, Valery, Vittorini, Nathanael West and Tennessee Williams.
They were inspired by Alfred Jarry and Raymond
Queneau, whose Exercices de style (1947; Exercises in Style) consisted of a single anecdote presented in 99 different forms demonstrating different figures of speech, style, and other literary elements.