A Short Treatise Inviting the Reader to Discover the Subtle Art of Go

An introduction to the ancient Japanese strategy game of Go by Oulipo members Pierre Lusson, Georges Perec and Jacques RoubaudWritten by a mathematician, a poet and a mathematician-poet, this 1969 guide to the ancient Japanese game of Go was not only the first such guide to be published in France (and thereby introduced the centuries-old game of strategy into that country) but something of a subtle Oulipian guidebook to writing strategies and tactics. As in the Oulipian strategy of writing under constraint, the role of structured gameplay (within literature and without) proves to be of primordial importance: a means of moving outside an inherent system, of instigating new figures of style and meaning, new paths toward collaboration and new strategies for filling a space: be it the space of a terrain, a blank page, a white screen or a freshly stretched canvas. Translated for the first time, this treatise outlines the history of Go, the rules for playing it, some central tactics and stra