Take It, Leave It, Fold It: Playing with Raymond Federman

This introduction to the volume sets the tone for a reading experience of Federman's works. Since the early 60s, Raymond Federman has been one of the most important American writers. In his highly experimental fictions, in works that bear such titles as Take It or Leave It, Double or Nothing, and The Twofold Vibrations, he has explored cultural and personal memory, invented intricate narrative strategies, and above all has given readers an experience that exceeds the ordinary. Creating situations that make one really think and really laugh is a tall order for any writer. But Federman did it. He is one of the few writers to truly have achieved this.

As he has just turned 80 and is being celebrated around the world, Danish scholars at AAU and RU have decided to mark the event. The essays show that Federman situates himself not only vis-à-vis literary history, in which he is by now well recognized and firmly consolidated, but also vis-à-vis the kind of literary history that allows readers to come close to writers and thus engage in a 'communal' act of writing themselves. Put it differently, we read Federman to write about him as he writes about us through his own experiences.