ABSTRACT
Many clowns secretly despair - and this same phenomenon occurs in the remarkable prose of Pierre Autin-Grenier. Born just three days after April Fool's Day in 1947, 1952, or 1953, Autin-Grenier has created an unmistakable tone in his books, one mixing drollery with metaphysical hopelessness, a sentiment of futility with a contradictory resolve to be just "the slightest bit combative and utopian". Calling himself a "poet", Autin-Grenier writes short prose of the most original kind. It is hard to define these short narratives which are not really prose poems yet which are stylistically much denser than mere sketches, vignettes, or diary-like self-analyses. Except for L'Ange au gilet rouge, a collection of genuine short stories, Autin-Grenier typically composes what might be called "personal mini-essays" often set in Carpentras, where he has long lived, or in his beloved hometown of the Lyons.
