A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles

André Maurois Charlotte de Koch (translator)

Here is the entry on the island of Maina, home to the Articoles, in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places by Alberto Manguel and Gianna Guadalupi:

A famous Articole writer, Routchko, published an interesting confession, some 16,900 pages long, entitled Why I Cannot Write. According to the Articoles, every subject, every experience, deserves to be expressed as a form of art. Thus an Articole will publish not only his Intimate Journal, but also his Journal of My Intimate Journal; and his wife will publish the Journal of My Husband’s Journal of His Intimate Journal. In recent times, publishers addicted to the Bloomsbury faith have wholeheartedly subscribed to the Articole creed.

• "Dangerous, charming, and funny — this elegant miniature of French literature will delight even brilliant minds." — Simon Van Booy


• We wonder how it is that the New York Review of Books missed this enchanting novella — a cautionary tale on the subject of literary zealotry — in their superb NYRB Classics series.