Hortense in Exile     by Jacques Roubaud, Translated by Dominic DiBernardi Original title: Exil d'Hortense Published by Dalkey Archive Press Pub. Date: November 1, 2000 Format: Paperback, 211 pages ISBN: 1564782557 List Price: $11.95 buy now directly from the publisher Free Shipping Worldwide Published by Dalkey Archive Press Pub. Date: July 1, 1992 Format: Cloth, 211 pages ISBN: 1564780015 List Price: $19.95 buy now directly from the publisher Free Shipping Worldwide

Click on image to see enlargement

Set to marry Gormansko, the Premier Prince Presumptive, our beautiful heroine Hortense has been exiled to Queneau'stown, where she finds herself in a real-life production of Hamlet —or is it Hatmel, the original Poldevian tal e scandalously plagiarized by that Englishman William Shahkayspear? Something is definitely amiss in the Poldevian Principalities, and if her loyal friends can't rescue her or foil the plagiarized plots of her evil twin, she may require intervention from the Author and Publisher—those unlikely cohorts responsible for bringing this deftly satiric, madcap adventure to light.

Brimming with literary allusions, philosophical conundrums, witty interjections, and (of course) cats, Hortense in Exile is the third installment in the altogether delightful and hilarious "Hortense Series" by French novelist and mathematician Jacques Roubaud. Combining high literary sentiments with mathematical games, brilliant wordplay and an effusive sense of humor, Roubaud's works a r e some of the most enjoyable in all of contemporary literature, and he is considered to be one of the most accomplished members of Oulipo (the workshop for experimental literature founded by Raymond Queneau and including such figures as Georges Perec, Har ry Mathews, and Italo Calvino).

"The Mouse That Roared by way of Derrida."—Kirkus

"A self-sufficient welter of crazy logic, fun, frolic, maths and make-believe reminiscent of diluted Rabelais, Lewis Carroll and Flann O'Brien."—Peter Reading, Times Literary Supplement

"So completely transporting that you forget where you are. . . . More fun than you have experienced in a long, long while."—Patty O'Connell, Washington Post

"Mr. Roubaud puns merrily, twists spellings and syntax, playing constantly with language and the traditional conventions of fiction and drama."—Colin Walters, Washington Times

"Splendidly silly."—New Yorker

"As engrossing as Hamlet, whose story Roubaud 'borrows,' and as delightfully silly as Gilbert and Sullivan."—Michael Dirda, Cleveland Plain Dealer

"For anyone whose mind has wandered while perusing France's more tedious linguistic moil, Hortense will restore faith in the nation's esprit."—Publishers Weekly

"An opera bouffe of novelistic conventions."Booklist