53 DAYS

Brisbane killed Georges Perec,

Brisbane, St Lucia and

Joh Bjelke-Petersen

killed OUILIPO’s star.

Perec, who looked very much

like a marsupial

touched down at Eagle Farm

in late August 1981

to be writer-in-residence

in the French Department

at the University of Queensland

for 53 days.

Stendhal took 53 days to dictate

The Charterhouse of Parma in 1839

and Georges Perec decided

he was going to

also write a novel in 53 days,

precociously called 53 Days,

a detective novel like a Chinese puzzle

but he never finished it

because Australia killed him.

“C’est l’Australie qui m’a foutu mal!” he said

shortly before he died in Paris.

Some say it was the cigarettes,

but I know it was Queensland

that gave him cancer.

C’est l’Australie qui m’a foutu mal!