Geboren 1936

This volume demonstrates that the autobiographical aspect can be read as a key to Perec's entire work. It includes ten autobiographical pieces from the years 1959 to 1981 – ranging from the circumstances of his own birth ("I was born") to a sketch on memory work, a draft of his Ellis Island project, and a list of "some things I really need to do before I die." They are part of an unfinished complex, of which Perec only completed "W or the Childhood Memory," in which he aimed to experiment with entirely new autobiographical strategies: in the obsessive collection of micro-memories, in encoding moments of memory that are meant to remain hidden – or as a parachutist diving headfirst into the exploration of his own identity.