French-Swiss writer of psychological novels and a pioneer of comparative criticism.

After his first novels, written in the style of Émile Zola, the best of which was Palmyre Veulard (1881), Rod soon evolved his own highly sensitive, introverted psychological art in such novels as La Course à la mort (1885), Le Sens de la vie (1889), Nouvelles Romandes (1890), La Vie privée de Michel Teissier (1893; The Private Life of an Eminent Politician), and Le Silence (1894). Although often a prey to pessimism and despondency, Rod insisted more and more on duty, conscience, and renunciation as decisive elements of life. As a critic he was a forerunner of modern comparative literary study, his chief works being De la littérature comparée (1886) and Reflets d'Amérique (1905).