Perec, Georges

George Perec's Jewish parents emigrated from Poland to France in the 1920s. His father served in the war and was killed in 1940 on the day that the Second Armistice was signed at Compiègne. Perec's mother was deported and died in the camps, but not before she had made sure that her son would be looked after by a pair of wealthy, kind relatives who lived in the countryside where he was admitted to a Catholic school. His foster parents told him to forget his biological parents and everything he had been through. This suppression of his past and the void his parents had left haunted Perec for the rest of his life and may be one of the keys to understanding his work.