Short story & social meetup: Oulipo

Welcome to our June short story & social meetup! The month's theme is experimental fiction. For this meetup we will be reading a selection of work from the Oulipo writing collective.

Oulipo (short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; or "workshop of potential literature" in English) is a group of (mostly) French writers who develop constraints and processes, often based on mathematical problems or patterns, that they then use as a basis for creating literary works.

The selections below are excerpts from longer works (each translated from French) by three authors in this group. We've included some longer excerpts for those of you who really want to get a feel for the work, but feel free to read as little or as much as you like!

• "A Void" (excerpt) by George Perec - the first four chapters from Perec's playful novel about the disappearance of Anton Vowl (40 pages): Download PDF
• "Exercises in Style" (excerpt) by Raymond Queneau - the first five entries in a Queneau's retelling of the same micro-story 99 ways, plus an the original translator's preface provided for context that you are free to skip (8 pages): Download PDF
• "Sphinx" (excerpt) by Anne Garréta - a short passage from Garréta's debut novel, a mysterious love story (2773 words): Read online

This meetup will take place in person at Bristol Pub in downtown Oslo. Drinks, snacks, and more food are available for purchase, and you're welcome to hang out and chat for as long as you like after we're done talking about these works.

We hope to see you there!