Biographical note from An Anthology of New York Poets (1970)
Very sad news for lovers of the New York School and contemporary literature: the novelist and poet Harry Mathews passed away this week at the age of 86. Mathews is best-known as an experimental fiction writer who was one of the only American members of the Oulipo, the avant-garde French movement devoted to the use of playful procedures, mathematical games, and constraints, whose most famous members were Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, and Raymond Queneau. >>
For more of Andrew's essay, click here.
For David Lehman's obituary essay, which we published on February 4, 2017, click here. For Ed Park's lively and well-informed Bookforum piece on Mathews ("Antics Roadshow"; April / May 2018), click here. For Joseph McIlroy's sestina for Harry Mathews, click here.