His travels around the United States at this time resulted in his first experimental book, Mobile, published in 1962 to a controversial reception.

Part of the fascination of his writing is the way it combines the rigorous symmetries that led Roland Barthes to praise him as an epitome of structuralism (exemplified, for instance, by the architectural scheme of Passage de Milan or the calendrical structure of L'emploi du temps) with a lyrical sensibility more akin to Baudelaire than to Robbe-Grillet.

"[9][10][11][12] After meeting in 1977, Butor became a friend of Elinor S. Miller, a French professor at Rollins College at the time.

[16] Michel Butor was a foundational member of The Raymond Roussel Society, established in 2016 alongside notable contemporaries including John Ashbery, Miquel Barceló, Joan Bofill-Amargós, Thor Halvorssen, and Hermes Salceda.

This bibliography is organized according to categories suggested by Jean Duffy's guide to Michel Butor.

Le simple prélèvement la transforme, le choix dans lequel je l'insère, sa découpure (deux critiques peuvent citer le même passage en fixant ses bords différemment), les allégements que j'opère à l'intérieur, lesquels peuvent substituer une autre grammaire à l'originelle et naturellement, la façon dont je l'aborde, dont elle est prise dans mon commentaireA whole ideology of ownership and transmission is implied by the commercial promotion of books and a certain kind of discourse in newspapers, schools and universities, with its emphasis on greatness, uniqueness, and influence—often via quotation—as a one-way process.