In 1992 Perec's initially rejected novel Gaspard pas mort (Gaspard not dead), believed to be lost, was found by David Bellos amongst papers in the house of Perec's friend . The novel was reworked several times and retitled '"The Letter Vanishes" by James Gibbons, Bookforum, December/January 2006 and published in 2012; its English translation by Bellos followed in 2014 as Portrait of a Man after the 1475 painting of that name by Antonello da Messina."Georges Perec's Lost Novel" by David Bellos, The New York Review of Books, 8 April 2015 The initial title borrows the name Gaspard from the Paul Verlaine poem "Gaspar Hauser Chante" (inspired by Kaspar Hauser, from the 1881 collection Sagesse) and characters named "Gaspard" appear in both W, or the Memory of Childhood and Life: A User's Manual, while in MICRO-TRADUCTIONS, 15 variations discrètes sur un poème connu he creatively re-writes the Verlaine poem fifteen times.
In 1992 Perec's initially rejected novel Gaspard pas mort (Gaspard not dead), believed to be lost, was found by David Bellos amongst papers in the house of Perec's friend . The novel was reworked several times and retitled '"The Letter Vanishes" by James Gibbons, Bookforum, December/January 2006 and published in 2012; its English translation by Bellos followed in 2014 as Portrait of a Man after the 1475 painting of that name by Antonello da Messina."Georges Perec's Lost Novel" by David Bellos, The New York Review of Books, 8 April 2015 The initial title borrows the name Gaspard from the Paul Verlaine poem "Gaspar Hauser Chante" (inspired by Kaspar Hauser, from the 1881 collection Sagesse) and characters named "Gaspard" appear in both W or the Memory of Childhood ,and Life: A User's Manual, while in MICRO-TRADUCTIONS, 15 variations discrètes sur un poème connu he creatively re-writes the Verlaine poem fifteen times.