About

Georges Perec (1936–1982) is one of the most celebrated and significant figures of 20th century French literature. Renowned for his ingenious wordplay and creative structural innovations, he is best known for his breathrough novel 'Things: A Story of the Sixties' 1965, the ambitiously imbricated 'Life: A User's Manual' 1978 and 'A Void' 1969, a novel written entirely without the use of the letter 'e'.

Perec was raised by his aunt and uncle after the death of his parents when he was a child — his father while serving in the French army, his mother at a Nazi concentration camp. His work frequently explores his own feelings of loss, escape and dislocation following these tragedies, while nevertheless retaining a mischievous sense of humour. He often focuses on objects and minutiae more than biographical details of his characters, finding a unique power in the accumulation of such details. He was a proponent of 'constrained writing' — most notably seen in the omission of 'A Void' — a mathematically-informed literary mode explored by the Oulip group, of which Perec remains the most famous member.

In 1981, Perec was invited to serve as writer-in-residence at the University of Queensland. He planned to use his visit to begin and complete a novel titled '53 Days', so-named for the length of his visit and his intended writing time. During his time in Brisbane, Perec received a terminal lung cancer diagnosis and returned to Paris; he died the following year and the novel remained uncompleted.

While most celebrated for his literary career, Perec also made remarkable contributions to the world of cinema. He adapated his own texts to screen, contributed to original screenplays and directed one film for French television. This program is a rare presentation of his cinematic works, from the existential portrait The Man Who Sleeps 1974 and the incandescent crime drama Série noire 1979 to the autobiographical The Places of a Fugue 1978 and the posthumously completed Going Up Vilin Street 1992.

QAGOMA acknowledges the generous assistance of La Cinémathèque française, Paris and Institut national de l'audiovisuel, Paris in providing materials for this program. Program curated by Robert Hughes, Australian Cinémathèque. Additional writing by Sophie Hopmeier, Australian Cinémathèque.