The Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature) is a literary think tank that brings together writers and mathematicians. Since 1960, its worldwide influence has refreshed ways of making and thinking about literature.
How to Do Things with Forms assesses the work of the group, explores where it came from, and envisages its future. Redefining the Oulipo’s key concept of the constraint in a clear and rigorous way, Chris Andrews weighs the roles of craft and imitation in the group’s practice. He highlights the importance of translation for the Oulipo’s writers, explaining how their new forms convey meanings and how these famously playful authors are also moved by serious concerns. Offering fresh interpretations of emblematic Oulipian works such as Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual, Andrews also examines lesser-known texts by Jacques Roubaud, Anne F. Garréta, and Michelle Grangaud.
How to Do Things with Forms addresses questions of interest to anyone involved in the making of literature, illuminating how writers decide when to stop revising, the risks and benefits of a project mentality in creative writing, and ways of holding a reader’s interest for as long as possible.

Chris Andrews is associate professor at the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University.

Chris Andrews' profile page

“An excellent read. Informative, challenging, vigorously stimulating, and highly inspiring. Chris Andrews presents a comprehensive study that invites the reader to want to know more about Oulipo and formalism in literature. This book enriches Oulipo's critique at the international level.” Marc Lapprand, University of Victoria and author of Pourquoi l'Oulipo?

“Readers should not be fooled by the title of this work. It is not a primer on how to streamline inefficient office procedures. It is rather an impressive panoramic survey of the Oulipo (OuLiPo), a school of initially French writers who first got together in 1960 to explore the intersection of science and literature. [Oulipians] see restraints as gateways to creation in the same way that the algorithmic sonnet shape generates endless variety. Counterintuitively, in their view, forms liberate rather than enslave. They give the imagination wings to soar into the literary stratosphere. Highly recommended.” Choice