Metalepsis and the auteur supposé in Raymond Queneau’s Œuvres complètes de Sally Mara

Raymond Queneau’s choice to publish the novel On est toujours trop bon avec les femmes (1947) under the pseudonym of Sally Mara, followed by her Journal intime (1950) and an edition of her Œuvres complètes (1962), has generally been a cause for the neglect of these works rather than an object of study in itself. This article treats the use of a pseudonym as part of a broader strategy that belongs to the tradition of the auteur supposé and contributes to an exploration of themes of authorship. It examines the texts using the narratological concept of metalepsis and with a focus on the manipulation of conventions of paratext. This analysis reveals that the prefaces, footnotes, and other paratextual apparatus constitute a narrative concerning the three author-figures whose signatures appear on the works — Raymond Queneau, Michel Presle, and Sally Mara — and which develops over the course of the publication history. An understanding of the complex and shifting diegetic framework is shown to be more helpful than the simplistic concept of a pseudonym, and challenges our assumptions concerning the boundaries between text, paratext, and author.