Oulipo

Oulipo as well as Ouhispo, Ouphopo, Oucuipo, Oupolpot… These are not names of African rivers but rather of the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle,(the Workshop of potential literature) founded by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais in 1960, and all its emanations (History workshops, photography workshops, kitchen workshops, potential political workshops). At the beginning there was a wish to produce a complicated literature (or rather magnified) through a series of mathematical constraints – using the number of syllables, the repetition of letters or their absence such as the famous Disparition by Georges Pérec, a complete book without the letter "e". This book is the catalogue of an exhibition at the library of the Arsenal, Paris, until 15 February 2015. It brings back to life a current adventure halfway between a club of crossword puzzles and an esoteric sect, with more influence than we can imagine.

• Oulipo, collective work, Gallimard, 2014, 192 p., €39.