Tel Quel (in English "as is") was an avant-garde literary magazine, founded in 1960 in Paris by Philippe Sollers and Jean-Edern Hallier and published by Éditions du Seuil. Important essays working towards post-structuralism and deconstruction appeared here. Publication ceased in 1982, and the journal was followed by L'Infini.
It aimed to reflect the avant-garde revaluation of classical literary history. The foci of its writings varied, but, as one might read in its name, most writings meant to inscribe what is as it is, emphasizing the metaphor of all language and the deconstruction of control systems set to normalize the masses.
The editors committee included Philippe Sollers, Jean-Edern Hallier, Jean-René Huguenin, Jean Ricardou, Jean Thibaudeau, Michel Deguy, Marcelin Pleynet, Denis Roche, Jean-Louis Baudry, Jean-Pierre Faye, Jacqueline Risset, François Wahl, and Julia Kristeva (married to Philippe Sollers since 1967).
Authors and collaborators include Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Jean Cayrol, Jean-Pierre Faye, Julia Kristeva, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Marcelin Pleynet, Maurice Roche, Philippe Sollers, Tzvetan Todorov, Francis Ponge, Umberto Eco, Gérard Genette, Pierre Boulez, Pierre Guyotat, Severo Sarduy, and Shoshana Felman.
In 1971 the journal broke with the French Communist Party and declared its support for Maoism. In 1974 the editorial members Philippe Sollers, Marcelin Pleynet, François Wahl, Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva visited China. The trip, which was tightly organized by Chinese government officials, would later be processed in several essays and books by the participants. In the autumn of 1976 the journal explicitly distanced itself from Maoism.
Read more about Tel Quel: Further Reading