The book is a set of ten sonnets printed on card with each line on a separate strip.
When Queneau ran into trouble creating the book, he solicited the help of mathematician Francois Le Lionnais, and in the process they initiated Oulipo.
[2][better source needed] Beverley Charles Rowe's translation, one that uses the same rhyme sounds, has been published online.
[3][better source needed] In 1984, Edition Zweitausendeins in Frankfurt published a German translation by Ludwig Harig.
[4] In 1997, a French court decision outlawed the publication of the original poem on the Internet, citing the Queneau estate and Gallimard publishing house's exclusive moral right.