A book without the letter ‘e’

Georges Perec wrote a 300 page novel without using the letter ‘e’. It’s a mystery, of course: friends gather at a country manor, but one of their number (A. Vowl) is missing. The title of the book is itself a pun: A Void.

Incredibly, the book has been translated into multiple languages, including English. The translations carry the same meaning as the original, and follow the same or equally challenging lipogrammatic constraints.

A Void
Parisette [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
This is how the English translation by Gilbert Adair begins:

Today, by radio, and also on giant hoardings, a rabbi, an admiral notorious for his links to Masonry, a trio of cardinals, a trio, too, of insignificant politicians (bought and paid for by a rich and corrupt Anglo-Canadian banking corporation), inform us all of how our country now risks dying of starvation.

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