Tropisms
book by Nathalie Sarraute
Tropisms (French: Tropismes [tʁɔ.pism]) is an experimental novel by Nathalie Sarraute, first published in 1939. It is considered a forerunner of the Nouveau Roman. Jean Genet, Marguerite Duras and Jean-Paul Sartre all described it as a masterpiece.
The title refers to tropisms, stimuli to plant growth; in the human sense, Sarraute imagined tropisms as "interior movements that precede and prepare our words and actions, at the limits of our consciousness."
It was ranked #73 in Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century.
Content
Tropisms consists of twenty-four short vignettes, capturing brief scenes in minute detail.
The public source identifies “Tropisms” as book by Nathalie Sarraute. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tropisms, book and Nathalie.
Why this record matters
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3540781. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1939.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tropisms” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.