Ten Favorite Works of Oulipian Fiction
(A literature of patterns and stringent, often mathematical constraints. Here are ten of the most fascinating examples, organized alphabetically by author. I’ve marked the actual members of the Oulipo with asterisks.)
Tristano by Nanni Balestrini
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino*
Fissures: One Hundred 100-Word Stories by Grant Faulkner
Sphinx by Anne Garréta*
The Sextine Chapel by Hervé Le Tellier*
The Way Home: Collected Longer Prose by Harry Mathews*
A Void by Georges Perec*
And Yet They Were Happy by Helen Phillips
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau*
Anthropology: 101 True Love Stories by Dan Rhodes
— November 24, 2020