Georges Perec Libros

This selection of non-fictional work from the author of Life, a User's Manual, demonstrates Georges Perec's characteristic lightness of touch, wry humour and accessibility.

One Of The Most Dazzling And Ingeniously Contrived Works Of Twentieth-Century Fiction, An Entire Microcosm Brought To Life In A Paris Apartment Block. Serge Val-Ne, One Of The Inhabitants Of The Apartment Block, Has Conceived The Idea Of A Painting Which Will Show In Exact Detail The Inside Of Each Apartment Within The Building, Every Person, Every Object. As He Thinks Of His Picture, He Contemplates The Lives Of All The People He Has Ever Known Or Heard About In Sixty Years Living There. Chapter By Chapter, Room By Room, The Narrative Moves Around The Building, Revealing As It Does So A Marvellously Diverse Cast Of Characters In A Series Of Ever More Unlikely Tales, Which Range From An Avenging Murderer To An Eccentric English Millionaire Who Has Devised The Ultimate Pastime-

The Oulipo's members have included luminaries of the calibre of Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp and Georges Perec. In 1979 Georges Perec wrote a brief entertainment for a publisher's catalogue: The Winter Journey. It became his most reprinted text, and revealed an extraordinary literary discovery, a secret concealed at the heart of modern French literature. Following Perec's death, the group began writing sequels to this tale, and gradually this became a sort of initiation to the group: new members were encouraged to write a Winter Journey'. And so a loose narrative was born.'

Through lyrical prose and reflective inventories, the narrative captures the experiences of sixteen million immigrants who arrived in America between 1890 and 1954. Drawing on his own tragic past, Perec explores themes of chance, exile, and identity, portraying Ellis Island as a symbol of displacement and longing for belonging. This work stands out as a poignant meditation on the immigrant experience, highlighting the struggles against intolerance and poverty that drive individuals from their homelands.

Things: A Story of the Sixties is the story of a young couple who want to enjoy life, but the only way they know how to do so is through ownership of 'things'.In A Man Asleep, a young student embarks upon a disturbing and exhaustive pursuit of indifference, following his experience in non-existence with relentless logic.

Perec was a leading exponent of French literary surrealism who found humour - and pathos - in the human need for classification. Thoughts of Sorts is itself unclassifiable, a unique collection of philosophical riffs on his obsession with lists, puzzles, catalogues, and taxonomies. Introduced by Margaret Drabble.

A hilarious and inventive office-drone odyssey. - Bookforum Its wit and comedy encourage compulsive consumption. -David O'Neill, Barnes and Noble Review We readers will have to deal with the fortunate burden of clearing shelf-space for another novel by Perec this spring, with the first English translation of The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise . -Most Anticipated Books of 2011, The Millions As a witty indictment of corporate culture and an artifact from one of the 20th century's most bizarre literary movements, The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise -as with all the works of Georges Perec-is a puzzle too absurd not to explore ... [it] will interest any reader who has ever worked in a large bureaucracy and considered himself underpaid. -James K. McAuley, Harvard Crimson Perec's novels are games, each different. They are played for real stakes and in some cases breathtakingly large ones. As games should be, and as literary games often are not, they are fun. - Los Angeles Times We defy you to walk by this book and not pick it up. Perfectly packaged and immediately intriguing! - A Largehearted WORD Book of the Week A brilliant ... conceptual, comedic novella from the writer who wrote the postmodern masterpiece Life: A User's Manual . - City Arts An acute and penetrating vision of the world of office work. - Arthur Perec's knack for absurdity and circumlocution ensures that each iteration is novel and urgent. - Full Stop [A] fun read for someone who enjoys computer programming and corporate irony, and would make a perfect gift for the office mate with a good sense of humor. - bestdamncreativewritingblog [A] terribly compelling work, one that does a great deal with very little. With his use of repetition, which also evokes a pre-set mechanism, Perec establishes a rhythm of sorts, while his subtle deviations from the pattern serve as moments of dark comedy. - Slant Magazine Certainly something different, and quite enjoyable. - Complete Review

Combining inventive fiction and autobiography in a quite unprecedented way, Georges Perec leads the reader inexorably towards the horror that lies at the origin of the post-World War Two world, and at the crux of his own identity.