In the United States, Raymond Queneau (1903-1976) is known mainly for
his novel Zazie dans le metro, which was made into a film by Louis
Malle, for Excercises in Style, and for being the founder and one of the
most important members of the literary movement known as Oulipo. In
France and much of Europe Queneau is known for his prolific and wide
ranging writings. During his lifetime some eighteen novels, ten volumes
of poetry, seven volumes of essays, and countless other published essays
and commentaries kept him in public view and continue to do so today as
new biographies, symposiums, and critical writings on him appear with
regularity. Les Ziaux (Eyeseas) present a bilingual survey of his poems
as written from his early Surrealist days of the 1920's through to 1943
and is representative of Queneau's range of poetic voices. As so little
of Queneau's poetry has been published in English, we hope this
translation will not only fill a serious void but may also help to
inspire interest in the poetry of one of the most important French
writers of the twentieth-century.