"For a New Novel" is a collection of essays by a prominent French writer and filmmaker, where he challenges the traditional norms of narrative and character development in novels. The author argues for a new form of novel, one that focuses more on the objectivity of description and the presentation of things as they are, rather than on the psychological analysis of characters. He criticizes the conventional novel for its reliance on plot, causality, and character development, and instead proposes a novel that is more concerned with the surface of things, their materiality and their presence in space and time.

This book serves as an introduction to structural anthropology, a field that focuses on human societies and cultures as systems of meaning. The author explores various topics such as kinship, mythology, and art, using a structuralist approach to understand the underlying patterns and structures that govern human behavior and thought. By analyzing different cultures, the author demonstrates how seemingly disparate elements can be understood in relation to each other within a larger system, providing profound insights into the nature of human society and culture.