Novel produced by a foreign general (8)
I believe the answer is:
uncommon
'novel' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'by a foreign general' is the wordplay.
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a foreign' becomes 'un' ('a' translated into French).
'general' becomes 'common' (I've seen this before).
'un'+'common' is 'UNCOMMON'.
'produced' is the link.
(Other definitions for uncommon that I've seen before include "Not ordinary or usual" , "Not usual, remarkable" , "Rarely seen" , "Infrequent" , "Extraordinary - rare" .)