The count-down is complete; the line has served its time. In this spirit of millennial closure, the Winter 1999/2000 issue of ebr will be the last written under the constraint of periodical publication.

Abish's Africa

Abish's Alphabetical Africa is pondered here, in a critifiction by Louis Bury. Bury's text is written - like the novel itself - under constraint: each critical query begins with a new letter of the alphabet. Culminating in "Zeugma," the essay explores the poetics of Abish's linguistic experiment from somewhere close to the inside. (Doug Nufer's Negativeland gets a similar - though more subtle - treatment in another Bury piece.)

Absences, Negations, Voids

Examining Doug Nufer's Negativeland, a constraint-based text, Louis Bury adopts the same constraint as the novel - an approach NOT dissimilar to his treatment of Abish's Alphabetical Africa. In this case, the constraint is a prohibition against sentences lacking "some form of negation" - a commitment not unlike the affirmation of negativity.

Revolution 2: An Interview with Mark Z. Danielewski

Kiki Benzon and Mark Z. Danielewski discuss his 2006 book Only Revolutions at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto.

Pinocchio's Piccolo, or, How Tristram Shandy Got It Straight: Searching in Raymond Federman's Body Shards

Michael Wutz writes of how, in Raymond Federman's My Body in Nine Parts, body parts are represented as having registered, inscribed, contributed to Federman's life.

The Riddling Effect: Rules and Unruliness in the Work of Harry Mathews

Michael Boyden reflects on the stubborn and idiosyncratic fiction of Harry Mathews and introduces a new ebr gathering of work on and by Mathews.

An Interview with Harry Mathews

Michael Boyden interviews Harry Mathews via email.

The Dialect of the Tribe

This is a reprint of Mathews' short story which originally appeared in The Human Country: New and Collected Stories (Dalkey Archive 2002).

Fearful Symmetries

Harry Mathews writes of the inherent difficulties in translation - especially the translation of his own work.

Verse in Reverse

On the occasion of the 2003 Fitzpatrick O'Dinn Award publication, Alan Sondheim asks some questions of formally constrained literature. The more strict the constraints, the more open, free, and plentiful the questions.

&Now Conference Review

Late Breaking: William Gillespie, Scott Rettberg, and Rob Wittig post from Notre Dame University on the &Now festival of writers and writing.

Nothing Less and Nothing More: The Oulipo Compendium

Alain Vuillemin comprehends the compendium - a summing up of four decades of Oulipian activity. Translation by James Stevens

Readability, Web Publishing, and ebr: A Riposte to Eye Magazine

In a letter to Eye magazine, ebr's editor, publisher, and designer respond to criticism of the website's appearance

Fecal Profundity

Human waste takes center stage in Dominique Laporte's unusual microhistory, a book as valuable for the anecdotes as for its argument.

Notable American Prose

Ted Pelton reviews Ben Marcus's novel that's not one.

Tomorrow Ltd.

Thoughts on the debut novel by Alex Shakar.

The Present of Fiction

Recent fiction by Curtis White, Alex Shakar, Michael Martone, and others read through the lens of Gertrude Stein and Wittgenstein.

Unraveling the Tapestry of Califia

Jaishree K. Odin on the hyperfiction of M.D. Coverley.

Not Browsing but Reading: Magazines and Books Online

Perusing websites pertaining to literary matters, Eye magazine cites HTML's "gaptoothed rawness" as a hindance to readability in ebr (prior to the journal's redesign).

Constrained Thinking: From Network to Membrane

Paul Harris examines the theoretical aspects of constrained thinking in the age of electronic textuality (in 2000 words, natch!)

Writing Under Constraint

ebr10, a satisfyingly even number published at the turn of the millennium, seemed at the time like the right occasion for calling an end to issues altogether. In the event, we would not manage to eliminate issues until February 2002 - that palindromic month and year, as satisfying in its way as the y2k.

Mister Smathers

a short fiction by Harry Mathews

The Education of Adams (Henry) / ALAMO

Paul Braffort studies constrained writing from Henry Adams to Braffort's own ALAMO project, and presents his findings in the form of a Triolet (between 1999 and 2000 words)

Toward a General Theory of the Constraint

Bernardo Schiavetta: a definition (in 2000 words)

Fed Ex Un Ltd

Jan Baetens reviews the Raymond Federman Recyclopedia, a book whose humour - and evident bad taste - raise it above its own formidable constraints.

More Pixels to the Inch

Thomas Hartl reviews Ron Sukenick's Mosaic Man

Seeking the (Black Hole) Sun

Cynthia Davidson reviews Sex for the Millennium by Harold Jaffe

Exposed

William O'Rourke on the beat of the Clinton beat

Ovid's Concrete Labyrinths

Tony D'Souza on Alex Shakar's Metamorphoses.

Nothing Less and Nothing More: The Oulipo Compendium

Alain Vuillemin comprehends the compendium - a summing up of four decades of Oulipian activity. Translation by James Stevens

Works Cited

Alire: A Relentless Literary Investigation

Phillippe Bootz gives an account of the longest standing web-based literary journal in France. Translation by James Stevens

Harry Mathews's Al Gore Rhythms: A Re-viewing of Tlooth, Cigarettes, and The Journalist

Paul Harris rediscovers the senior American member of Oulipo on the occasion of three new reprints from The Dalkey Archive Press.

An Inter(e)view with Ben Marcus

Stacey Levine on the occasion of Dalkey Archive's reprinting of The Age of Wire and String