BKLYN OuLiPo: rats who build the maze from which they will try to escape
OuLiPo (short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: "workshop of potential literature") is a group of writers and mathematicians founded in 1960. OuLiPo creates constraints for writers to work within, thus creating "potential literature." Check out the works on this list for a good introduction, and join us this summer at Marcy for some OuLiPo-inspired writing exercises.
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In this metafictional mystery, a 22-year-old philosophy student is kidnapped and a dog is murdered - the imaginary country of Poldevia is somehow involved. The novel is arranged in the form of a sestina (replete with authorial asides and plenty of puns, jokes and wordplay).
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Based on an actual bus trip across France taken by Oulipo-member Jacques Jouet in the late ’80s, his fictional reconstruction of the experience twenty years later focuses not so much on the scenery as on the possibilities offered an author by the eponymous vehicle and its occupants.
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Old-school publisher meets e-reader: chaos ensues.
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Opening a book that has mysteriously appeared amid the clutter of his desk, the narrator finds himself exhorted not to read further, to throw the book away! Instead he tries different strategies for approaching the book, none of which work.
