Species of spaces and other pieces: Georges Perec

Georges Perec

Penguin Group USA, 1997 - Literary Collections - 288 pages

This generous selection of Georges Perec's nonfiction, the first to appear in English, features ingenious contemplations on the ways in which we occupy urban and domestic space, engrossing accounts of his experiences with psychoanalysis, depictions of the Paris of his childhood, thought-provoking examinations of the "infra ordinary" -- the commonplace items of our lives eluding our attention -- and a short story executed with a Borges-like finesse. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces puts us in the presence of a virtuoso writer, whom Italo Calvino called "one of the most significant literary personalities in the world".

What people are saying

Review: Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (Penguin Classics)

User Review  - Adam Floridia - Goodreads

Species of Spaces 5/5: Something about Perec's originality just really gets me. His attention to detail, his ability to notice the everyday, but more so his taking the time to pay attention, to notice ...

Review: Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

User Review  - Holly - Goodreads

My friend Colleen plucked this from a shelf and handed it to me after a conversation about the Oulipo movement and constraint. "If you like Calvino, you'll like this," she said. And she was right. It ...

About the author

George Perec was born in Paris on March 7, 1936 and was educated in Claude-Bernard and Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire. Perec was a parachutist in the French Military before he began publishing his writing in magazines like Partisans. Perec also wrote the book, Life: A Users Manual. Perec is noted for his constrained writing: his 300-page novel La disparition (1969) is a lipogram, written without ever using the letter "e". Georges Perec died on March 3, 1982.

John Sturrock is a literary journalist, sometime deputy editor of the "Times Literary Supplement," and consulting editor on the "London Review of Books," He has written widely on French literature, and is an accomplished translator.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Species of spaces and other pieces: Georges Perec; Penguin classics; Penguin selected writings; Penguin twentieth-century classics
• Author: Georges Perec
• Editor: John Sturrock
• Translated by: John Sturrock
• Contributor: John Sturrock
• Edition: revised
• Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 1997
• ISBN: 0140189866, 9780140189865
• Length: 288 pages
• Subjects: Literary Collections / Essays; Literary Criticism / General