stories and science fiction; on another side, Annie Ernaux's écriture plate ("flat writing") tries to demolish the distance between reality and its narration. Subjects are shown in a persistent state of crisis. However, a return to everyday life and trivial habits also takes place: the attention is focused to the "outcasts of literature", like, for instance, old people. This use of triviality and everyday life expresses itself in a new sort of "minimalism": from Pierre Michon's Small lives fictional biographies of unknown people, to Philippe Delerm's "small pleasures". The facets of this minimalism manifest themselves in many ways, through the triviality of the subject, through short forms, or through concise and bare phrases. On one hand, heroicized characters try to build up their own individual way against a senseless reality, so that emarginated or marginal people emerge through the building up of their own story; on the other hand, a "negative minimalism" takes place: characters stagnate in social and relational difficulties. French authors of the extrême contemporain (selection) Eliette Abécassis Jean-Pierre Abraham Olivier Adam Emmanuel Adely Hafid Aggoune Eva Almassy Marc Alpozzo Jacques-Pierre Amette Jean-Pierre Andrevon Christine Angot Yann Apperry Claude Arnaud Pierre Assouline Alexis Aubenque Brigitte Aubert Antoine Audouard Yvan Audouard Pierre Autin-Grenier Ayerdhal François Bégaudeau Frédéric Beigbeder Pierre Bergounioux Arno Bertina Jacques A. Bertrand François Bon Michel Chaillou Christophe Claro Philippe Claudel Philippe Delerm Christine Deroin Maryline Desbiolles Michèle Desbordes Virginie Despentes Jean Echenoz Annie Ernaux Maxence Fermine Michael Ferrier Alain Fleischer Christian Gailly Sylvie Germain Michel Houellebecq Frédéric-Yves Jeannet Jean-Marie Laclavetine Camille Laurens Gabriel Méxène Pierre Michon Alain Nadaud Claude Ollier Christian Oster Daniel Pennac Pascal Quignard Jean Rolin Olivier Rolin Tiphaine Samoyault Colombe Schneck Tanguy Viel Antoine Volodine Cécile Wajsbrot See also French literature List of French language authors Notes References Littérature francophone, by Jean-Louis Joubert. Paris: Nathan, 1992 Littérature moderne du monde francophone, by Peter Thompson. Chicago: National Textbook Company (McGraw-Hill), 1997 Négritude et nouveaux monde—poésie noire: africaine, antillaise, malgache, by Peter Thompson. Concord, MA: Wayside Publishing, 1994 Dominique Viart, Le roman français au XXe siècle, Paris, würzburg, 1999. Matteo Majorano (ed.), Le goût du roman, Bari, B. A. Graphis, 2002. Matteo Majorano (ed.), Le jeu des arts, Bari, B. A. Graphis, 2005. Dominique Viart, Bruno Vercier, La littérature française au présent: Héritage, modernité, mutations, Paris, Bordas, 2005 Bibliographie. Études sur la prose française de l'extrême contemporain en Italie et en France (1984–2006), Bari, B.