Oulipo

Oulipo (sometimes written OuLiPo) stands for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, the French for Workshop for Potential Literature. It was founded in 1960 by a group of writers and mathematicians, as a sub-committee of the College of Pataphysics. Its aim was to invent new forms and structures for literary works, as well as bring back old ones. Examples of these can be found in my Experimental literature list and include lipograms, the same incident told in multiple ways, such as Raymond Queneau‘s Excercices de Style, writing only in monosyllables and replacing every noun with the noun seven letters after it in the dictionary. Mathematics is key to their work and they focus on the formal rather than inspirational aspects of literature. Key members of the group include Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Harry Mathews (one of the few US members), Italo Calvino and Marcel Bénabou, with his brilliantly titled book Pourquoi je n’ai écrit aucun de mes livres (Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books).

Books about Oulipo

Peter Consenstein: Literary Memory, Consciousness, and the Group Oulipo
Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie
Warren F. Motte (editor): Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature
Raymond Queneau et al.: Oulipo Laboratory (Texts from the Bibliothèque oulipienne)
Oulipo: Abrége de littérature potentielle (in French)
Oulipo: La littérature potentielle (in French)

The Modern Novel

The world-wide literary novel from early 20th Century onwards

Oulipo

Books about Oulipo

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