Michel Butor

Michel Butor was born in Mons-en-Baroeul, France, in 1926. In the 1950s, he worked as a French teacher in Egypt and later as a philosophy professor at the Ecole Internationale in Geneva. He then pursued an academic career in literature in the USA, France (University of Nice), and Switzerland (University of Geneva), from which he retired in 1991. As an author, he primarily focused on novels but also engaged with other forms of prose, poetry, and essays. He wrote the novels "Passage de Milan" (1954), "L'Emploi du temps" ("The Use of Time") (1956), "La Modification" ("Modification") (1957, Renaudot Prize), "Degres" (1960), experimental texts/short prose, eleven poetry collections, as well as numerous writings on painting, literary history, and art theory. He passed away on August 24, 2016.