Perec, Georges (1936–1982)

French novelist. One of the most innovative French writers of his generation, he wrote novels noted for their verbal ingenuity. The novel La Disparition/The Void 1969, for example, is written without using the letter ‘e’. His most highly regarded work is La Vie, mode d'emploi/Life: A User's Manual 1978.

Rejecting the moral earnestness of the ‘committed’ writers of the post-war years such as Sartre and Camus, Perec sought to write playful and inventive novels. Determined ‘never to write the same way twice’, he wrote in a bewildering variety of styles and forms, his works often employing parody, pastiche, and sophisticated word games. Together with the noted writers Italo Calvino and Raymond Queneau, he was a leading member of a group dedicated to evolving new forms of fiction, OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle/Workshop of Potential Literature).

His works include Les Choses: Une Histoire des années soixante/Things: A Story of the Sixties 1965, and W, ou les souvenir d'enfance/W, or the Memory of Childhood 1975, which is part autobiography, part fiction.