-- First paperback edition.
-- In this madcap metafictional mystery a 22-year-old philosophy student (Hortense) is kidnapped and a dog is murdered -- the imaginary country of Poldevia is somehow involved. Arranged in the form of a sestina (replete with authorial asides and plenty of puns, jokes and wordplay), this is the second installment in Roubaud's popular and widely acclaimed "Hortense" series.
-- A professor of mathematics at the University of Paris X Nanterre and a long time member of Oulipo, the Workshop for Potential Literature, Jacques Roubaud is the author of several novels and works of poetry.
-- First published in the U.S. by Dalkey Archive (1989).

Jacques Roubaud, born in 1932, has been a professor of mathematics at the University of Paris X Nanterre. He is one of the most accomplished members of the Oulipo, the workshop for experimental literature founded by Raymond Queneau and Francois Le Lionnais. He is the author of numerous books of prose, theatre and poetry.