A Void
1969 novel by Georges Perec
title: "A Void" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["novels-by-georges-perec", "1969-french-novels", "lipograms", "metafictional-novels", "oulipian-works"] description: "1969 novel by Georges Perec" topic_path: "geography/france" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary 1969 novel by Georges Perec ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox book"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | A Void |
| title_orig | La Disparition |
| translator | Gilbert Adair |
| image | A-Void.jpg |
| caption | Cover of the English translation of La Disparition |
| author | Georges Perec |
| country | France |
| language | French |
| publisher | |
| pub_date | 1969 |
| english_pub_date | 1995 |
| media_type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| pages | 290 pp (Eng. trans. Hardcover) |
| isbn | 0-00-271119-2 |
| isbn_note | (Eng. trans. Hardcover) |
| oclc | 31434932 |
| :: |
| name = A Void | title_orig = La Disparition | translator = Gilbert Adair | image = A-Void.jpg | caption = Cover of the English translation of La Disparition | author = Georges Perec | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = France | language = French | series = | genre = | publisher = | pub_date = 1969 | english_pub_date = 1995 | media_type = Print (Hardcover, Paperback) | pages = 290 pp (Eng. trans. Hardcover) | isbn = 0-00-271119-2 | isbn_note = (Eng. trans. Hardcover) | oclc = 31434932 | preceded_by = | followed_by =
A Void, translated from the original French La Disparition ( "The Disappearance"), is a 300-page French lipogrammatic novel, put out in 1969 by Georges Perec, written wholly without using the letter e, following Oulipo constraints.
Plot summary
A Void plot follows a group of individuals looking for a missing companion, Anton Vowl. It is in part a parody of noir and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and a grim conclusion. On many occasions it implicitly talks about its own lipogrammatic limitation, highlighting its unusual syntax. A Void protagonists finally work out which symbol is missing, but find it a hazardous topic to discuss, as any who try to bypass this story's constraint risk fatal injury. Philip Howard, writing a lipogrammatic appraisal of A Void in his column Lost Words, said: "This is a story chock-full of plots and sub-plots, of loops within loops, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an opportunity to display his customary virtuosity as an avant-gardist magician, acrobat and clown."
Major themes
Georges Perec's direct kin passed away in World War II: his father as a GI, his mother in the Holocaust. Perec was brought up by his aunt and uncle after serving in the war as a parachutist. Warren Motte finds the lack of any e in the book as a stand-in for Perec's own notion of loss and spiritual limbo:
Translations
It was translated into English by Gilbert Adair, with the title A Void, for which he won the Scott Moncrieff Prize in 1995. The Adair translation of the book also won the 1996 Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Fiction.
Various English translations are titled A Vanishing by Ian Monk, Vanish'd! by John Lee, and Omissions by Julian West.
All translators have asked that the text follow the lipogrammatic constraint of the original work, avoiding the most commonly used letter of the alphabet. This precludes the use of words normally considered crucial such as je ("I"), et ("and"), and le (masculine "the") in French, as well as "me", "be", and "the" in English. The Spanish version contains no a, which is the second most common suffix in the Spanish language (first being e), while the Russian version contains no о. In Japan, "A Void" contains no syllables with the sound "i" (い, き, し, etc.) at all.
::data[format=table title="Other languages translations"]
| Language | Author | Title | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | Eugen Helmlé | Anton Voyls Fortgang | 1986 |
| Italian | Piero Falchetta | La scomparsa | 1995 |
| Spanish | Marisol Arbués, Mercé Burrel, Marc Parayre, Hermes Salceda and Regina Vega | El secuestro | 1997 |
| Swedish | Sture Pyk | Försvinna | 2000 |
| Russian | Ales Astashonok-Zhgirovsky | Исчезновение [Ischeznovenie] | 2001 |
| Russian | Valeriy Kislov | Исчезание [Ischezanie] | 2005 |
| Turkish | Cemal Yardımcı | Kayboluş | 2006 |
| Dutch | Guido van de Wiel | 't Manco | 2009 |
| Romanian | Serban Foarta | Disparitia | 2010 |
| Japanese | Shuichiro Shiotsuka | 煙滅 [Emmetsu] | 2010 |
| Croatian | Vanda Mikšić | Ispario | 2012 |
| Portuguese | José Roberto "Zéfere" Andrades Féres | O Sumiço | 2016 |
| Catalan | Adrià Pujol Cruells | L'eclipsi | 2017 |
| Polish | René Koelblen and Stanisław Waszak | Zniknięcia | 2022 |
| Finnish | Ville Keynäs | Häviäminen | 2023 |
| :: |
Versions
References
References
- "Reading Georges Perec". Dalkey Archive Press.
- "List of prize winners at the Society of Authors website".
- "Firecracker Alternative Book Awards". ReadersRead.com.
- Levin Becker, Daniel. (2012). "Many subtle channels : in praise of potential literature". Harvard University Press.
- (1995). "La lecture du texte traduit". Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle.
- (2015). "Enjeux du jeu de mots : Perspectives linguistiques et littéraires". De Gruyter.
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