Sphinx - by Anne Garréta (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Sphinx is the remarkable debut novel, originally published in 1986, by the incredibly talented and inventive French author Anne Garréeacute;ta, one of the few female members of Oulipo, the influential and exclusive French experimental literary group whose mission is to create literature based on mathematical and linguistic restraints, and whose ranks include Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, among others.

A beautiful and complex love story between two characters, the narrator, "I," and their lover, A***, written without using any gender markers to refer to the main characters, Sphinx is a remarkable linguistic feat and paragon of experimental literature that has never been accomplished before or since in the strictly-gendered French language.

Sphinx is a landmark text in the feminist, LGBT, and experimental literary canons appearing in English for the first time.

Review Quotes

"The set-up is such a classic, relatable tale of falling in -- and out -- of love that one wonders why gender has always been such a huge factor in how we discuss relationships, in fiction and otherwise. . . . So, the author, and the translator, created their own language, championing love and desire over power and difference." -- Maddie Crum, Huffington Post

"The strength of [Sphinx] lies in its philosophical eloquence . . . Take away gender and race from the book, and what's left? Love, viewed as a nihilistic transcendence . . . considerably more than a language game." -- Adam Mars-Jones, London Review of Books

"In this sense, just as the novel is genderless, it is also genderfull . . . Garréeacute;ta finds endless shades of in between and out of bounds, her characters taking shapes no other text before--or since--has imagined." -- Lauren Elkin, Bookforum

"Garréta's aim was to overthrow gender binaries carried by language, and in light of recent demands by transgender groups to use gender neutral pronouns, Sphinx seems curiously prescient." -- Catherine Humble, The Times Literary Supplement (TLS)

"[Garreta's] been called influential and groundbreaking, and with this, her first translation into English, it is easy to see why. Sphinx is an important contribution to queer literature--fascinating, intelligent, and very welcome." --Lambda Literary

"Sphinx challenges automatisms, identification mechanisms, and the urgent need for gender categorization. The absence of linguistic gender acts as a mirror reflecting back the reader's projections." -- Gaëeuml;lle Cogan, Kenyon Review

"Sphinx is an almost effortlessly readable, atmospheric love story, like a Marguerite Duras novel starring a pair of genderless paramours who haunt the after-hours clubs and cabarets of Paris. The conceit is so simple and so potent that it's impossible to get too far without pondering big questions about the role gender plays in the way we think about love in literature -- and in life." -- Flavorwire Staff Pick by editor-in-chief Judy Berman

"For Garréta, it just may be possible then that the body occupies the space of language as powerfully as its capacity to produce it." -- Tyler Curtis, BOMB Magazine

"Sphinx is a novel of passion and loss that transcends gender and speaks to the universality of desire and loss, morality, spiritual crisis and the need to connect and belong. It's also a novel that captivates and propels the reader to question the boundaries of desire and memory--and which one ultimately holds us captive." -- Monica Carter, Three Percent

"A unique novel, Sphinx succeeds in telling a love story without names or genders, allowing the reader to interpret the novel however they wish. Set in Paris and calling to mind the work of James Baldwin, this both feminist and LGBT book is deeply evocative in its word usage as it celebrates love without the constraints of gender." -- World Literature Today

"I must start by saying that I simply devoured this book. Its romp through seamy Paris nightclubs; its exacting portrait of a passionate affair; and its exploration of both mileus with a deft mixture of immediacy and intellectual detachment had me absolutely obsessed with it -- I just had to know what was happening next."? -- Miriam Bridenne, Albertine Books, "4 French Women Writers To Discover This Summer!"

"A powerfully compelling narrative." -- Tobias Carro

About the Author