All-time greatest French novelist?

(Sorry for the lack of accents.)

• Sexist. You have forgotten Nathalie Sarraute!

• Bitch is prejudiced!

  Gerard%20de%20Nerval

• Some of us who are writers are also men of action!

  Andre%20Malraux

• Camus certainly is the most popular worldwide, yet he has no votes....

• Really, really, really tough choice. I opted for Proust, but any on that list could win and it'd be justified.

• Flaubert, OP, the answer is always going to be Flaubert.

• J'accuse, OP!

• [quote]Bitch is prejudiced! by: Gerard de Nerval You never wrote a novel, Gerard.

• Liar, R8. "Aurelia" for example.

  Thibault%2C%20Nerval%27s%20pet%20Lobster

• Andre Maurois

• Jules Michelet and Michel Foucault So clever with the sources they passed themselves off as non-fiction writers!

• George Sand Simone de Beauvoir Jean-Paul Sartre

• Irma LaDouche

• I voted for Balzac because his name is the same as a Frenchman's private parts.

  Hermione%20Gingold%20in%20%22The%20Music%20Man%22

• Jules Verne.

  Thread.%20%20Closed.

• I am glad some one remembered Malraux, he seems somewhat forgotten today. Stendhal is my favorite - I have read The Red and the Black many times, it is my favorite book. But, r6 is correct - it's Flaubert.

• Flaubert. His never-ending search for "le mot juste" paid off.

• Who was the lesbian that wrote The Abyss? She should be on the list.

• I don't see why Flaubert is so well liked. He was mean to us!

  Bovard%20et%20Pecuchet

• So let me get this straight. Proust and Flaubert are geniuses because they were rich kids who could afford to spend five years on a few hundred pages? Don't make laugh! It is the characters, which matter, not the language!

  Alexandre%20Dumas%2C%20pere

• No Andre Gide in this list?

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Gide

• D'oh there it is! Seriously underrated novelist in my opinion.

  R20

• i have read all of the above (except for Louis-Ferdinand Celine) and i like them all. However if i have to pick up one from this, i would pick....wait! I can't pick only one from this list! At least let me pick...four! So i give my votes to Andre Gide, Honore de Balzac, Marcel Proust and Victor Hugo. By the way,from your beautiful list misses Francois Mauriac, one of the greatest French novelists. :)

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Mauriac

• *if i had

  R23

• 'Novel' is too limited a category for excellence in French writers. I feel that the French developed both the essay and the short short (comte) as an art form. Zola, Voltaire. Gide and Genet excelled in multiple genres of writing. I also feel that de Maupassant's short stories are top-notch. Candide remains one of my personal faves. I am not sure if would 'fit' into the current definition of a novel as it is also both brilliant social satire.

• There are no women in this list. What happened to Madame de Stael, George Sand, Colette and Marguerite Yourcenar?

  Nance from Delray

• Nance from Delray,unfortunately i only know Colette and George Sand from your list and i only have read the first one. The other two escaped me...

• Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) is best-known as the author of "Memoirs of Hadrian." She was also the first woman to be inducted into the prestigious French Academy. Germaine Necker, Madame de Stael (1766-1817) wrote "Corinne" as well as several works of non-fiction. She was also a famous salonniere and political opponent of Napoleon.

  Nance from Delray

• Were "The Adventures of Tin-Tin" written in French?

• Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly was also a noticeable French writer. I have read his fiction novel 'L'Ensorcelée'(Bewitched) and i found it really gripping. I read in Wiki that he had a decisive influence on writers such as Henry James and Marcel Proust.

• de Sade

• R31 hehehehe!

  Ping%20Pong

• Huysmans

• Anatole France

  Will and Ariel Durant (in Parnassus)

• Ask Dubya...he knows ALL about KA-MOO.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DlAy3XVn7oIU

  Carwford%2C%20TX%20Lilbrarian

• Michel Tremblay

• We are interested in French, not francophone authors. Otherwise we'd have to consider Anne Hebert and Hubert Aquin.

• I'm so used to being ignored by racist pigs like the OP. Even though I was the most widely read French writer in history, it took the establishment 132 years to honor me with burial in the Pantheon.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2531617.stm

  Alexandre Dumas, père