The Oulipo - in full, the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature - was founded in France in 1960 by the French author Raymond Queneau and the mathematical historian François Le Lionnais. Made up of mathematicians as well as writers, the group assigned itself the task of exploring how mathematical structures might be used in literary creation. The idea of mathematical structure was soon broadened to include all highly restrictive methods, like the palindrome and the sestina, that are strict enough to play a decisive role in determining what their users write. The most notorious example of this approach is Georges Perec's novel, A Void, written without a single appearance of the letter e.
For many years the Oulipo - which is, by the way, still going strong - was considered in France to be a rather daffy enterprise capable of producing work that was often hilarious but decidedly eccentric. The appearance of Georges Perec's Life A User's Manual and Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, both exploiting Oulipian structures, did much to modify the general view, as did no doubt the distinction of the Oulipo's membership. In addition to Queneau, Perec, and Calvino, it has included Marcel Duchamp, Harry Mathews, and Jacques Roubaud, together with many notable writers and scholars little known outside France and a number of mathematicians (such as Claude Berge) who are internationally famous within their profession. By the 1980s, the Oulipo had become renowned, respected and - to the consternation of its members - almost reputable.