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Three by Perec

Three by Perec

by Georges Perec
Translated by Ian Monk
Introduction By David Bellos

$16.95 USD
$16.95 USD
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Product Details

Verba Mundi

Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-56792-254-7
Pages: 208
Size: 5.6" x 8.3"
Published: August 2004
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“One of the most singular literary personalities in the world.”—Italo Calvino

Three works of short fiction by Georges Perec.

The novella The Exeter Text contains all those e‘s that were omitted from his novel, A Void (Perec hated waste) and no other vowel. In Which Moped with Chrome-Plated Handlebars at the Back of the Yard? we meet Sergeant Henri Pollak and his vehicle that carries him between Vincennes and Montparnasse and A Gallery Portrait about a painting of the beer baron Hermann Raffke, sitting in front of his huge art collection, which includes A Gallery Portrait" of the baron sitting before “A Gallery Portrait.”

Perec's artistry has achieved a perfect balance between allure and imponderability. —Richard Eder, LA Times
I once had the occasion to write to the translator of these books, David Bellos, and I took the opportunity to let him know that Perec is my favorite writer, and that, since a translator is to a large extent the creative force behind a translated work, he, David Bellos, is also, in a palpable way, my favorite writer. Few writers have opened up the possibilities of literary art with as much enthusiasm, mastery, and pleasure as Perec.
—Martin Riker, Associate Director of the Dalkey Archive Press
Georges Perec
Georges Perec was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Holocaust, and many of his works deal with absence, loss, and identity, often through word play.
Ian Monk
Ian Monk has been a member of French avant-garde writing society Oulipo, of which Perec was also a member, since 1998. He is English, but writes primarily in French. His translations have won numerous awards, including the 2004 Scott Moncrieff Prize.
David Bellos
David Bellos is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. In 2005, he won the first Man Booker International Prize for translation for his translations of the Albanian author Ismail Kadare. He holds the rank of Officier in the Ordre national des Arts et des Lettres and an honorary membership in The International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters.