The Hayden Library will host an interactive exhibition starting on September 7th. Patrons will be able to play a selection of video games adapted from literary works from Sophocles to Douglas Adams. The exhibit explores the range of approaches taken to create videogames of literary works. The result is often whimsical, turning the worlds of these stories into spaces to be explored.

The games featured in the exhibit invite players to become Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, dodging drunken partygoers in the way to meeting Gatsby; explore the world of Shakespeare’s plays; carry out an introspective exercise based on Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus; or revisit the events of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Games by the Book, curated by Clara Fernández-Vara and Nick Montfort, will be open to the public through October 8th on the 2nd floor of the Hayden Library. More details at http://trope-tank.mit.edu/games_by_the_book/.

The exhibit is sponsored by the De Florez Fund for Humor, the MIT Council of the Arts, the MIT Game Lab, and the Electronic Literature Organization and Comparative Media Studies.