“The ‘Wicked Songs’ of Guilleaume Du Vintrais: A 16th-Century French Poet in the Gulag”, 2012-07 (; similar):
[more] This article examines the remarkable history and works of ‘Guilleaume du Vintrais’, a 16th-century French poet who was invented by two prisoners of the BAM labour camp system in the early 1940s.
A survey of sanctioned cultural facilities and activities available within the BAM camp system sheds light on the genesis of this literary mystification, while an analysis of metapoetic aspects of the sonnets helps to clarify notions of freedom and power that du Vintrais’s creators expressed and achieved through their imaginary poet and his verse.