In Quignard's own words, "The Little Treaties were inaccessible for a long time. Beginning in 1977, finished in 1980, rejected by numerous editors, the eight volumes had to wait until 1991 to appear in its entirety. [...] They are neither essays nor fictions. They do not fit into any genre. They are short arguments torn, contradictions that are left open, negative hands, aporias, fragments of stories, vestiges. [...] I have always loved rejected things. It has become almost second nature. We look down from above on what we despise, when the treasure that remains of the human world is perhaps what it has repudiated."