— First paperback edition. — In this madcap metafictional mystery a 22-year-old philosophy student (Hortense) is kidnapped and a dog is murdered—the imaginary country of Poldevia is somehow involved. Arranged in the form of a sestina (replete with authorial asides and plenty of puns, jokes and wordplay), this is the second installment in Roubaud's popular and widely acclaimed Hortense series. — A professor of mathematics at the University of Paris X Nanterre and a long time member of Oulipo, the Workshop for Potential Literature, Jacques Roubaud is the author of several novels and works of poetry. — First published in the U.S. by Dalkey Archive (1989).