In 2010, Open Letter Books at the University of Rochester will be publishing the 517-page French novel Zone, written by Mathias Enard. According to the linked piece, the entire novel, save for a flashback, is made up of a single 150,000-word sentence.

As for how many words that sentence will have when translated into English, the article doesn’t say. “It has a lot of commas,” according to translator Chad Post.

In any case, here’s the novel as compared to its closest competitors:

1. 150,000 words in Zone, by Mathias Enard (published in French in 2008)

2. 40,000 words in Gates of Paradise, by Jerzy Andrzejewski (Polish, 1960)

3. 30,000 words in Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age, by Bohumil Hrabal (Czech, 1964)

4. 13,995 words in The Rotters’ Club, by Jonathan Coe (English, 2001)

I have no idea who wrote the longest sentence in science fiction, fantasy, or horror, but for the moment, I’m placing my bet on Barry Malzberg.