Alain Robbe-Grillet was born on August 18, 1922, in Saint-Pierre-Quilbignon, France, a municipality that is now part of Brest in Brittany. His parents were Gaston Robbe-Grillet, a manufacturer, and Yvonne Canu Robbe-Grillet, the daughter of a navy petty officer. Robbe-Grillet attended schools in Brest and Paris. Jeanine P. Plottel, in her article on Robbe-Grillet for European Writers, notes that while his parents were not well off economically, "they were particularly arrogant, convinced that they were more intelligent, capable, and talented than the world-at-large." Plottel also characterizes them as right-wing anarchists, "[f]illed with contempt and hatred for French democratic institutions." His father received several citations for his service during World War I, but his experiences during this period left him mentally unbalanced. Robbe-Grillet's mother has suggested that her son turned his father's mental instability into genius.

World War II interrupted Robbe-Grillet's schooling, as the Germans forced him to...