Anne Portugal

Anne Portugal (born March 29, 1949) is a French poet who lives and works in Paris. She was born in Angers (Maine-et-Loire) and attended Paris 8 University in the suburbs of Paris.

Her work is influenced by, and often references, Jacques Roubaud as well as contemporary sources such as instruction booklets and video games.

Her recent work Définitif bob (translated by Norma Cole as Virtual bob) has been the subject of considerable critical and popular interest. It is speculated that bob is short for bobine, a French word meaning "coil" and the origin of the English word "bobbin". bob (lower-case is mandatory) is a character (a minuscule joker) who lives in a television set (la télé où il est mais dedans à l'envers, the telly where he is but inside the wrong way round) who is a specialist in the mission serrée horizontale (close-fought horizontal mission is one possible translation).

A recurring motif is bob il peut comme ça (untranslatable, perhaps bob, just like that, ...). Another notable feature is the absence of punctuation in the 24 sections of the 128 page book involving the reader in the construction of its meaning.

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