Warren F. Motte is a professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado Boulder. His focus is contemporary writing, with an emphasis upon experimental, avant-garde, or other subversive forms of both fiction and poetry. Motte has authored or edited many volumes of literary criticism, including the first book-length study of the renowned French writer Georges Perec, an authoritative book on the experimental writing group known as Oulipo, and major studies of other writers such as Edmond Jabès, Marie NDiaye, Christine Montalbetti, Antoine Volodine, and Jean Rolin. Motte's recent books include Mirror Gazing (Dalkey Archive Press, 2014), a study of over 12,000 mirror scenes in literature, and French Fiction Today (Dalkey Archive Press, 2017), devoted to the contemporary French novel. In 2015 Motte was named a Knight in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Republic. In 2016 he was named a College Professor of Distinction by the University of Colorado Boulder, and in 2018 he was named a Distinguished Professor, the highest honor the University of Colorado awards to its faculty members.
He is married to a Frenchwoman with whom he has two sons: Nicholas Motte, a graphic designer, and musician Nathaniel Motte, one half of the American electronic music duo 3OH!3.
Education
Motte received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature as well as an A.M. and Ph.D. in French literature from the University of Pennsylvania. His doctoral dissertation on Georges Perec was the first book-length study of the now-famous experimental writer. Motte also received a Maîtrise in Anglo-American Literature from the Université de Bordeaux.
Works
Books
The Poetics of Experiment: A Study of the Work of Georges Perec (Lexington: French Forum Monographs, 1984)
