(1903 - 1976)

He studied Latin, Greek, philosophy, mathematics, and psychology at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He first worked as a bank clerk, then spent many years in the publishing house Gallimard. He was a member of Breton's Surrealist group, but then, together with his friends, founded the association OuLiPo whose members stayed on the member list even after they die and at any next meeting their absence was excused by the reason of death. 

Queneau wrote fiction (Children of Mud, My Friend Pierrot, Blue Flowers), poetry (a collection One Hundred Trillion Sonnets contains only ten sonnets, from which the patient reader may write the rest of them), essays. He experimented - especially with the language, he brought unprecedented colloquiality into literary French. It is said that he combined rationality with fantasy. And the roughness with jokes, disillusionment with the parody. He became famous mainly by his novel Zazie in the Metro.