PRE-TEXTOS F R A N K F U RT 2 0 1 2
www. pre-textos.com
LIST OF AUTHORS AND TITLES
ALTUNA, BELÉN, Una historia moral del rostro (Essay) ARNAU, JUAN, El cristal Spinoza (Narrative) BARBA, ANDRÉS, Muerte de un caballo (Narrative) BERGUA, JORGE, La música de los clásicos (Essay) BERNIER, JUAN ANTONIO, Árboles con tronco pintado de blanco (Poetry) BERNIER JUAN, Diario (Narrative) BERROCAL, ALFONSO, Poesía y filosofía: María Zambrano. La Generación del 27 y Emilio Prados (Essay) CADENAS, RAFAEL, Sobre abierto (Poetry) CANTELI, MARCOS, Es brizna (Poetry) CATALÁN, ANDRÉS y CLARK, BEN, Mantener la cadena de frío (Poetry) CARPIO, ALBERTO, Los comensales (Poetry) CRUSAT, CRISTIAN, Breve teoría del viaje y el desierto (Narrative) D’ ORS, PABLO, El estupor y la maravilla (Narrative) EMILIOZZI, IRMA (Ed.), Francisco Ayala en La Nación de Buenos Aires (Essay) GALÁN, JULIO CÉSAR, Márgenes (Poetry) GIL BERA, EDUARDO, Ninguno es mi nombre. Sumario del caso Homero (Essay) GONZÁLEZ ESTEVA, ORLANDO, Los ojos de Adán (Essay) GUBERN, ROMÁN, La confesión de Carmen (Narrative) HALFON, EDUARDO, Mañana nunca lo hablamos (Narrative) Elocuencias de un tartamudo (Narrative)
INSAUSTI, GABRIEL, Cámara oscura (Narrative)
URIEL, PABLO, No se fusila en domingo (Narrative)
JARAMILLO, DARÍO, Historia de Simona (Narrative)
VÉLEZ, NICANOR, La vida que respira (Poetry)
JARAMILLO, JAIME, Método fácil y rápido para ser poeta (Essay)
VIDAL VALICOURT, JOSÉ, Tomas falsas (Narrative)
JOVER, JOSÉ LUIS, Hasta más ver (Collages) MAILLARD, CHANTAL, Bélgica (Narrative) MARTÍN GIJÓN, MARIO, La patria imaginada de Máximo José Khan
NEXT TITLES
(Essay) MATEOS, JOSÉ, Historias de un Dios menguante (Narrative)
ÁLVAREZ MURENA, HÉCTOR, Los penúltimos días (Narrative)
MOLINA TEMBOURY, PEDRO, Islas, Islas (Poetry)
CAMBLOR, ISABEL, Memorias de la inocente niña homicida
MONTES, JAVIER, Segunda parte (Narrative) MUÑOZ MILLANES, JOSÉ, Los homenajes de Ramón Gaya (Essay) OLIVEROS, ALEJANDRO, Espacios en fuga (Poetry) PARDO, JOSÉ LUIS, El cuerpo sin órganos (Essay) PINO, CAMILO, Valle Zamuro (Narrative) ROCA, JUAN MANUEL, Pasaporte del apátrida (Poetry) SABORIT, JOSÉ, La eternidad y un día (Poetry) SCHOO, ERNESTO, Mi buenos aires querido (Essay) SEGOVIA, TOMÁS, Rastreos y otros poemas (Poetry) SOBCZYK, MAREK, De la fatiga de lo visible (Poetry) TRAPIELLO, ANDRÉS, El gato encerrado (Narrative) Apenas sensitivo (Narrative) Segunda oscuridad (Poetry)
(Narrative) D’ ORS, PABLO, El olvido de sí (Narrative)
UNA HISTORIA MORAL DEL ROSTRO ALTUNA, BELÉN ESSAY PAGES: 340 ISBN: 978-84-92913-87-9 PUBLICATION: 2011
“Y
ou, my invisible reader, have the face of a good person. Or maybe not. One of those faces of someone a little too clever, of notmany friends, a little bit horsey or somewhat bird-like? Yet in any case you do have a face, that much is for sure. And this is what it is like to have a text written on your forehead. A text which is being written and rewritten constantly, a text which, it is not quite clear how, but everyone who sees it can read it with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy.” The essay Una historia moral del rostro is both original and unusual. And this is because it proposes to integrate the most interesting aspects of such a wide range of sources (anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc.), subjects rarely combined and culminates in the foundations of the ethics of face. BELÉN ALTUNA is a Doctor of Philosophy and lectures Cultural Ethics and Philosophy at the Universidad del País Vasco. The history of moral ideas has intrigued her in many ways, as reflected in her previous work, Euskaldun Fededun (Alberdania, 2003),which deals with the relationship between Catholic morality and political ideology in the Basque Country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to this work, she has written other articles and chapters dealing with utopian thought and the idea of progress.
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EL CRISTAL SPINOZA ARNAU, JUAN
MUERTE DE UN CABALLO BARBA, ANDRÉS
NOVEL PAGES: 292 ISBN: 978-84-15297-87-1 PUBLICATION: 2012
NOVEL PAGES: 108 ISBN: 978-84-92913-95-4 PUBLICATION: 2011
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he novel by Juan Arnau wroten as a script screenplay, is divided up into a collection of scenes introduced by a mysterious character: Jan Van der Spycck, a man who seems to have a timeless aura about him. Jan claims to have known Spinoza as a child. The political unrest within the country has brought the philosopher to The Hague, where he is residing in the mansion of his father, the painter Hendrick Van der Spyck. Jan witnesses first hand some of the most decisive and formative events in Spinoza’s life: his first love, the theatre in the house of the former-Jesuit librarian Van den Enden, his dramatic expulsion from the synagogue, his exile from the Jewish quarter of Rijnsburg, an aborted assassination attempt, the lynching of the de Witt brothers, life in rented accommodation, his home-made experiments and his job as a lens polisher. In the midst of the riots, we are privy to the secret meetings of Spinoza’s circle of friends, the undying passion for knowledge and friendship, the imposing solitude of free thought, pursued relentlessly by the Church. To this day, Jan still retraces the footprints which the philosopher has left behind in time. He has recently been seen around the streets of Amsterdam. From there he stealthily travels, despite his aversion to aircraft, to the far corners of the globe, on the scent of the Spinoza’s presence. JUAN ARNAU (Valencia, 1968) is an astrophysicist and Doctor of Sanskrit philosophy. For the last years he has worked as a researcher at the University of Michigan and currently lectures at the University of Barcelona and is a member of the Consejo Asesor de Casa Asia. He has wroten many essays. This is his first novel.
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n extraordinary novella that under an apparent tenderness hides a dark heart that unleashes one’s hidden instincts. A horse in its death throes after an accident, a couple who dares not love each other, a teenager. Muerte de un caballo revolves around these simple elements to set up a discourse on love and death as through the lens of a camera. The fear of loving, the experience of death, the difficult discovery of the other and of one’s self in relation to the other. Though the background is of brisk realism, the author focuses on the intimate thoughts and desires of the characters that spark from the suffering of a dying horse. They not only try to understand what has happened, but most of all they struggle to make sense of what they really want. The dying horse in the end becomes a centre of gravity that makes it no longer possible to lie, or to be lied to. It is a force which pushes the characters to finally live by their feelings and desires. ANDRÉS BARBA (Madrid 1975), established his reputation in 2001 with his work La hermana de Katia, which was a finalist in the Premio Herralde awards and was adapted to a movie by Mijke de Jong. He then published an excellent collection of short stories and four more novels which confirmed him as one of the most important Spanish authors of his generation. The literary magazine Granta praised him as one of the best young narrators in the Spanish language. His work has been translated into eight languages.
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LA MÚSICA DE LOS CLÁSICOS. VERSIONES DE LA POESÍA ANTIGUA, DE LA EDAD MEDIA AL RENACIMIENTO BERGUA CAVERO, JORGE
ÁRBOLES CON TRONCO PINTADO DE BLANCO BERNIER, JUAN ANTONIO
POETRY PAGES: 60 ISBN: 978-84-15297-67-3 PUBLICATION: 2012
ESSAY PAGES: 308 ISBN: 978-84-15297-67-3 PUBLICATION: 2012
One of the fundamental questions dealt with in this study may well be –at least to those who
JUAN ANTONIO BERNIER (Córdoba, Spain, 1976) is the author of Así procede el pájaro (Pre-
tend to first perceive the world around them by ear rather than by sight- the most complex and compelling question to be posed in the field of the Humanities: the question which deals with the relationship between language and music, that wide, well-trodden path where text and melody, prosody and articulation, verbal and musical rhythm, the meaning of words and sounds, meet and converge, often in close collaboration, yet also in an eternal struggle, each to impose its will (Alfred Einstein categorically stated: “The history of song, or vocal forms in general, might be considered to be the history of the ceaseless struggle between the demands of the music and those of the text”). Focusing on the age-old fascination for Greek and Roman music held by European culture –and especially within the various musical versions of original Classical texts-, this is a study directed not by musicologists, but a work more akin to an essay within the wider field of musical tradition and its acceptance in antiquity.
textos, 2004), for which he was awarded the “Ojo Crítico” Prize for Poetry by Radio Nacional de España in 2005. His work as a translator and academic researcher has seen him publish Un silencio radiante. Ocho poetas búlgaros contemporaneos (Córdoba, 2010; in collaboration with Rada Panchovska and Liliana Tabakova), Las alas del heraldo by Boris Hristov (Málaga, 2011; in collaboration with Liliana Tabakova), Poesía escogida de Giorgio Caproni (Pre-textos, 2012; in collaboration with Juan Carlos Reche), Dejar atrás el agua. Nueve nuevos poetas cubanos (Córdoba, 2011; in collaboration with Fruela Fernández) and Diario (1918-1947) by Juan Bernier (Pre-textos, 2011).
JORGE BERGUA CAVERO (Zaragoza, 1965) holds the post of Doctor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and is a lecturer of Greek Philology at the Universidad de Málaga. He received a fellowship from the Residencia de Estudiantes from 1990 to 1993, and has worked as a guest researcher at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and at the Escuela Española de Historia y Arquelogía (CSIC) in Rome. His field of study centres on the Classical Tradition and the survival of the ancient legacy, both in its literary, musical and philosophical contexts and in its linguistic form. In addition to the above, he has worked extensively as a translator, both of Greek (Plutarch, Longus of Lesbos, Sextus Empiricus, Lucian of Samosata) and of French (Stendhal, Claire Goll, both for Pre-Textos) and German.
Between 2005 and 2011, he held the posts of Literary Coordinator of the international poetry
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festival Cosmopoética, and the Premio Nacional de Fomento de la Lectura in 2009. Since 2008 he has resided in Bulgaria, where he lectures Spanish at the University of Sofia St. Kliment Ohridski.
DIARIO BERNIER, JUAN EDICIÓN DE JUAN ANTONIO BERNIER
POESÍA Y FILOSOFÍA: MARÍA ZAMBRANO, LA GENERACIÓN DEL 27 Y EMILIO PRADOS BERROCAL, ALFONSO
NOVEL PAGES: 516 ISBN: 978-84-15297-12-3 PUBLICATION: 2011
ESSAY PAGES: 228 ISBN: 978-84-15297-48-2 PUBLICATION: 2012
“For its clarity, transparency, bravery, sincerity and radical nature, Diario by Juan Bernier represents one of the summits of autobiographical literature in Spain”.
This essay addresses the figure of María Zambrano from the perspective of her relationship with the poets of her time, principally the Generación del 27. Tracing her life story from her formative years and concluding with the writing of her most
The fact that it remained hidden until shortly before his death, when he decided to edit it for
intellectually mature works such as Pensamiento y poesía en la vida española or Filosofía y poesía,
subsequent publication, is an indication of the deepest sincerity with which he sought refuge
both written in 1939, this essay considers and analyses the poetic benchmarks which formed
in its pages during the darkest days of the Spanish Civil War and the post war period. Times
these contexts and which influenced the genesis of their so-called “poetic reason”. In this way,
described with enlightening insight by an intellectual freethinker and homosexual of the sta-
her friendships and the meeting places shared with poets such as José Bergamín, Luis Cernuda
ture of Juan Bernier.
or Miguel Hernández are also described. We are provided with an insight into the backdrops essential to her academic development, such as the poetry-imbued atmosphere of Segovia in
JUAN BERNIER was born in La Carlota in 1911 and died in Córdoba in 1989. In 1947, he foun-
her youth with the presence of tutelary figures like her father, Blas Zambrano or Antonio Ma-
ded the Córdoba-based magazine Cántico, where he worked as editor alongside Ricardo Mo-
chado, or the Spanish Civil War and her contribution as a thinker in the outstanding journal
lina and Pablo García Baena. In his professional life he dedicated his time to teaching,
Hora de España. Of all the figures from the world of poetry who knew María Zambrano bet-
archaeology and history. He published four collections of poems: Aquí en la tierra (1948), Una voz cualquiera (1959), Poesía en seis tiempos (1977) and En el pozo de yo (1982). A complete collection of his poetry has been compiled in Poesía completa (Valencia, Pre-Textos, 2011).
ween the latter part of the 1920s, the Spanish Civil War and her initial years in exile, it is Emilio Prados who deserves special consideration. Prados is the poet who shares the strongest affinity with María Zambrano’s thinking, and it is on the reconstruction of this dialogue and their mutual understanding that this study concentrates its focus. Alfonso Berrocal was awarded the Premio Internacional Gerardo Diego de Investigación Literaria 2010 for this essay .
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SOBRE ABIERTO CADENAS, RAFAEL
ES BRIZNA CANTELI, MARCOS
POETRY PAGES: 80 ISBN: 978-84-15297-82-6 PUBLICATION: 2012
POETRY PAGES: 60 ISBN: 978-84-15297-42-0 PUBLICATION: 2011
Flor, el que te mira en este instante se aparta para hacerte sitio.
hoy a punto de desprenderse el cielo mi amigo me habló de las rodillas de su padre creció hacia adentro mi abuelo muerto de las rodillas humanas la brizna
RAFAEL CADENAS was born one day in April, 1930 in Barquisimeto. The Andes begin or finish near this city, depending on which way you look at it. His works of poetry and prose are com-
la adormecida que adoramos
piled in Obra entera, co-published by the Fondo de Cultura and the publishing house Pre-Tex-
MARCOS CANTELI (Bimenes, Asturias, 1974) has published the following books of poems:
tos. Visor had previously published an anthology. His poems have been translated into French,
Reunión (Barcelona: Icaria, 1999), Enjambre (Madrid: Bartleby Editores, 2003), Sombrío (Bar-
Italian, English, German and Bulgarian. Thanks to the invitations he has received, he has given
celona: DVD Ediciones, 2005), for which he was awarded the prize XXXI Premio de Poesía
readings in the United States, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, England, Austria, Germany, Me-
Ciudad de Burgos, and Catálogo de incesantes (Madrid: Bartleby, 2008). He has translated the
xico, Santo Domingo, Costa Rica, Colombia and Argentina. He has compiled his works as a
work Pedazos (Pieces) by the North American poet Robert Creeley (Madrid: Bartleby Edito-
translator in El Taller de al lado. He is a retired lecturer at the Universidad Central de Vene-
res, 2005) and Libro de jaikus (Book of Haikus) by Jack Kerouac (Madrid: Bartleby Editores,
zuela, where he lectured Spanish and North American poetry. He has been awarded the fo-
2007). He was a member of the editorial board of the journal Solaria and the collection Nó-
llowing literary prizes; the Premio Nacional de Ensayo, Premio Nacional de Literatura,
madas de poesía. He currently heads the e-magazine escritura & poéticas www.7de7.net.
Premio San Juan de la Cruz and the Premio Internacional de Poesía J. A. Pérez Bonalde. He has also received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. He was recently the recipient of the literary award Premio FIL for Literature in Romance Languages.
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MANTENER LA CADENA DE FRÍO CATALÁN, ANDRÉS Y CLARK, BEN
LOS COMENSALES CARPIO, ALBERTO
POETRY PAGES: 92 ISBN: 978-84-15297-81-9 PUBLICATION: 2012
POETRY PAGES: 68 ISBN: 978-84-15297-59-8 PUBLICATION: 2012
Cuando Eva hizo lo suyo y Adán luego –trocitos de manzana entre los dientes– lo que quedó bien claro fue que a todas las cosas –todas, todos– se les adjudicó, sin más, la cifra, el signo de su caduca historia, de su muerte.
For this work, Mantener la cadena de frío, Andrés Catalán and Ben Clark were awared the literary prize Premio de poesía joven de Radio Nacional de España, 2011.
Vives en mí no sé de qué manera, no nos acompañas, llegas con cada nuevo muerto, no sé cómo te dicen, cuánto te echan de menos, cómo te vive mi padre, dónde te recuerda mi hermano, mamá ya sabes. Llegas, llego a sentirte como un cardenal, no una herida en la piel o un golpe externo, un cardenal sin límites precisos, así me llegas, a cada muerte vuelves por un tiempo, rondas, no sé si a ellos, pero rondas desde dentro, y no sé cómo conjugarte, cuándo me adentraste, si para siempre vivo en ti sin poder tocarte.
For his work, Los comensales, Alberto Carpio was awarded the literary prize El Premio de Poesía Emilio Prados 2011.
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BREVE TEORÍA DEL VIAJE Y EL DESIERTO CRUSAT, CRISTIAN
EL ESTUPOR Y LA MARAVILLA D’ ORS, PABLO
NOVEL PAGES: 112 ISBN: 978-84-15297-13-0 PUBLICATION: 2011
NOVEL PAGES: 415 ISBN: 978-84-8191-843-4 PUBLICATION: 2007
Breve teoría del viaje y el desierto, awarded the Premio Internacional de Cuentos “Manuel Llano”, 2010, directly challenges the majority of the accepted conventions in our literature regarding what constitutes the formal nature of short story writing.
“T
he museum guard understands that the great mystery in life lies in knowing how to observe. This is an unusual, unique work. A splendid novel, full of such subtle, intelligent humour, which is so rare to find these days.” Manuel Arranz, Posdata.
Thanks to an extraordinarily versatile prose, a nomadic style, which adapts to the different spiritual, physical or imaginary locations of each story and to the fragile individuality of their inhabitants, Crusat guides these buffeted characters through the abyss of fears, self-doubt and desires which make up the modern world. All of them are waiting for, searching for or exploring the possibility of a revelation which never appears in their numbed here-and-now. CRISTIAN CRUSAT (1983) is the author of the books of short stories Estatuas (Pre-Textos, 2006)
Based on this simplest of plots, Pablo d’Ors constructs “an epopoeia of trivialities (…) excellently developed and impeccably written, full of narrative discovery.” Ricardo Senabre, El Cultural, supplement of El Mundo. His “powerful,meticulous style and timelessness imbue the novel with a Central European air in which the influence of names such as Kafka, RobertWalser or Peter Handke are clearly evident.” Manual Rico, Mercurio.
and Tranquilos en tiempo de Guerra (Pre-Textos, 2010). He has seen his essays, translations and articles on comparative literature published in a wide range of journals, such as Revista de Occidente, Letra Internacional, Punto de partida o in Spain and Latin America. He teaches the Spanish language abroad.
PABLO D’ORS (Madrid, 1963) is the grandson of the essayist and art critic Eugenio d’Ors. His literary début was El estreno, published in 2000 which received a wide critical acclaim. He went on to publish Las ideas puras, a novel that was among the finalists for the literary award El Premio Herralde. He then published the novellette Andanzas del impresor Zollinger (Anagrama, 2003), recently translated into Catalan by the publishing house El Funambulista. His third novel, also published by Pre-Textos, is El estupor y la maravilla.
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FRANCISCO AYALA EN LA NACIÓN DE BUENOS AIRES EMILIOZZI, IRMA (ED.)
MÁRGENES GALÁN, JULIO CÉSAR POETRY PAGES: 80 ISBN: 978-84-15297-61-1 PUBLICATION: 2012
ESSAY PAGES: 408 ISBN: 978-84-15297-56-7 PUBLICATION: 2012
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his volume offers over thirty articles written by Francisco Ayala for La Nación of Buenos Aires which until today had never been published in book format. In addition to this wide range of texts, which offer both the readers and critics of Ayala’s works a fresh perspective and verification of what is already known, the book features essays, reports, interviews, biographical sketches and evocations of Ayala’s works by important writers, many of whom Argentinean, and provides an insight into the man himself. All of contributions compiled in this work have featured over the years in the prestigious Suplemento Cultural of the morning Buenos Aires newspaper. This set of works represents an excellent synthesis of the strong presence that the writer from Granada enjoyed in one of the countries of his exile. Francisco Ayala’s (Granada, 1906- Madrid, 2009) intellectual and creative endeavour as a narrative writer, essayist, critic or memorialist, has been recognized with a series of awards, amongst which figure the Premios Cervantes and the Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras. His work spans the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. His deepest-felt vocation was always inclined towards creative literature, a field in which he published works of avant-garde prose and series of short stories. Professor of Law and, in exile, of Sociology and Literature at various American universities, Ayala also worked as a translator and editor and throughout his life he published articles for and collaborated with the written press. In 1939, having only recently arrived in Buenos Aires, he initiated his professional relationship with the newspaper La Nación which would go on to span more than fifty years, until 1993.
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sin la corteza los árboles soltaron sus anillos y cambiabas los nombres por un mundo secreto y sonaba el arroyo que llevamos de los pies a la frente nunca podrás diferenciarte de las aves y de la nieve lo sé desde el día en que comencé a escribirte
JULIO CÉSAR GALÁN (Cáceres, 1978) currently works as a lecturer at the University of Algiers and is the director of the theatre and poetry magazines, Dioniso and El juego de los putrefactos respectively. He is the author of several books of poems, theatre texts and articles, some of which have been published in magazines such as Cuadernos hispanoamericanos, Turia, Alga, Cosmópolis, Primer Acto or Cuadernos del Matemático. For his work, Márgenes, Julio César Galán was awarded the Premio de Poesía Villa Cox (Alicante) in 2011.
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NINGUNO ES MI NOMBRE. SUMARIO DEL CASO HOMERO
LOS OJOS DE ADÁN GONZÁLEZ ESTEVA, ORLANDO
GIL BERA, EDUARDO ESSAY PAGES: 208 ISBN: 978-84-15297-63-3 PUBLICATION: 2012
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inguno es mi nombre. Sumario del caso Homero solves the Homerian question, and establishes for the very first time the authorship and date of composition of the Iliad, the Odyssey and other works belonging to the Ancient Greek epics. The study of the biography of Thales of Crete, the poet and legislator who imposed a regime of tyranny on Miletus, reveals that he was the promoter of the Homeric poems and it accredits the fact that Thales himself published a pamphlet in which it was made known that he was the poet of the Odyssey. Furthermore, it claims that Homer, the author of the Iliad, was so-called because his father, the King of Paphos and High Priest of Aphrodite, was handed over by the Cypriots to King Midas as a hostage. EDUARDO GIL BERA was born in Tudela in 1957. As an author his works include essays and fiction. For Pre-Textos he has published the novels Sobre la marcha (1996), Os quiero a todos (1997), and the book of essays Paisaje con fisuras (1999). For this same publishing house he has also translated works by Soma Morgenstern, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Walser and Peter Sloterdijk.
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ESSAY PAGES: 224 ISBN: 978-84-15297-72-7 PUBLICATION: 2012
Mankind, animals and plants; the stars and the most silent objects; literature and popular folklore; the weight of history and the flippancy of a people; an air of elegy and one of celebration; the analogical devil and reflective drive; a curious note and a common place; verse and prose; eroticism and blind faith in the imagination’s spirit of renewal, in its ability to clear our senses and offer a fuller, integral version of everything, are melded together in this book, in which Orlando González Esteva invites us to begin our world just as the very first man would have had to begin each day of his- eager for wonder. ORLANDO GONZÁLEZ ESTEVA was born in Cuba in 1952. He has resided in the United States since 1965. His poetic works feature Mañas de la poesía (1981), El pájaro tras la flecha (1988), Fosa común (1996), Escrito para borrar (1997), Casa de todos (2005) and La noche y los suyos (2005). He is also the author of the following imagination essays: Elogio del garabato (1994), Cuerpos en bandeja. Frutas y erotismo en Cuba (1998), Mi vida con los delfines (1998) and Amigo enigma: los dibujos de Juan Soriano (2000). In addition to La Casa de Todos, the publishing house Pre-Textos has also published his versions of haiku by Kobayashi Issa (Hoja de viaje, 2003) and re-issued Elogio del garabato and Fosa común in 2004. In 1981, Octavio Paz acclaimed González Esteva’s “book of fantasy” by noting that “It is an ever rarer quality in contemporary Latin American poetry”, and identifying his texts as being “a verbal polyhedron whose perfectly polished, shimmering sides alternately project the letters of two words- sense / nonsense. One is the other’s mask”.
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LA CONFESIÓN DE CARMEN GUBERN, ROMÁN
MAÑANA NUNCA LO HABLAMOS HALFON, EDUARDO
NOVEL PAGES: 224 ISBN: 978-84-15297-74-1 PUBLICATION: 2012
NOVEL PAGES: 140 ISBN: 978-84-15297-23-9 PUBLICATION: 2011
After the death of Prosper Merimée in Cannes in 1870, a number of rough literary draughts and unfinished manuscripts were found in his study, and it never became clear if he ever had the intention of publishing them. In fact, fond of mystification and jokes, Merimée had signed early dramatic texts included in Le Théâtre de Clara Gazul (1825) as being no more than the translator and publisher with the somewhat singular pseudonym Joseph L’Estrange. The work, however, was supposedly written by a Spanish actress, whose image featured on the book cover. Two years later he again purported to be just the translator of La Gazul, which he attributed to a so-called Hyacinthe Maglanovich. These unfinished manuscripts full of crossings out and corrections which Merimée left upon his death included La Confesión de Carmen, attributed to one Claire Guillot. It was a literary exercise which reintroduced the story and intrigue of his famous Carmen (1845), narrated by and large by the male voice of Don José in the first person, but also turned the famous gypsy into the narrator of her own story. This somewhat chaotic manuscript, almost illegible in parts, represents the starting point of the literary reconstruction and translation from French of this work. ROMÁN GUBERN (Barcelona, 1934) has worked as a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has lectured History of the Cinema at the University of Southern California, the California Institute of Technology, the Venice International University and the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, amongst others. He has published more than forty literary works. He has worked as a scriptwriter for cinema and television and is a scholar of Flamenco and gypsy culture.
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n this new series of childhood stories, Halfon, a master of elegant prose, has made great qualitative strides and is now considered a leading exponent of short story writing.” “Every childhood has its exit doors. In every childhood there are moments or episodes -sometimes magnanimous, sometimes banal, sometimes brief and fleeting- that are like narrow alleyways toward the splendor of the future. We walk through them with innocent strides, filled with impetus and curiosity, not able to comprehend, of course, that those precarious footsteps are irrevocable, that there’s no going back. Now and then I think that’s why I write. To try to go back to the fragile and illusive purity of my infancy, in the Guatemala of the turbulent 1970s. To dip the quill in the ink of my childhood memory until I find there the moments that were my exit doors. To trace back my childhood footsteps and again walk through those narrow alleyways and perhaps now, in a handful of pages, and through the cloudy prism of memory and fiction, recover flares of my paradise lost.” EDUARDO HALFON was born in 1971 in the city of Guatemala. He has published El ángel literario (Anagrama, 2004, Semi-finalist for the Premio Herralde de Novela), Siete minutos de desasosiego (Panamericana Editorial, 2007), Clases de hebreo (AMG, 2008), Clases de dibujo (AMG, 2009, XV Premio Literario Café Bretón & Bodegas Olarra), El boxeador polaco (PreTextos, 2008) and La pirueta (Pre-Textos, 2010, XIV Premio de Novela Corta José María de Pereda). In 2007 he was named one of the best young Latin American writers by the Hay Festival of Bogota.
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ELOCUENCIAS DE UN TARTAMUDO HALFON, EDUARDO
CÁMARA OSCURA INSAUSTI, GABRIEL
NOVEL PAGES: 72 ISBN: 978-84-15297-66-6 PUBLICATION: 2011
NOVEL PAGES: 552 ISBN: 978-84-15297-70-3 PUBLICATION: 2012
“Some years ago I read about a programme hosted by Paul Auster on the US public radio station, NPR, called The National Story Project. On the first night Auster went on air and asked North American listeners to send in their stories. The only two conditions, he told them, were that they should be true and short. He said that what he was most interested in was “stories which challenged our expectations of the world, anecdotes which revealed those mysterious, unknown forces which influence our lives, our family history, our bodies and our minds. In other words, true stories which seemed to be fiction”. It was then that a variant on this very same theme came to mind: I could become a kind of storyteller of other people’s stories. Just as a reporter or journalist would do, I would pay attention to the stories people told me, despite being apparently banal, innocuous, short and insignificant. And this is what I did throughout 2009. I listened out for, and told the stories of others, stories which I chanced upon and collected- in Guatemala, Mexico, in Iowa City and Havana, in Rioja and in Geneva- in the same way someone, somewhat lost, might pick up stones or petals or breadcrumbs. Some people shouted their stories at me, others whispered them, and some were even told with a stammer- yet, each one, always with an eloquence of its very own.” EDUARDO HALFON.
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hey say that it was Kepler who created it: a sealed room, with a single tiny orifice in one of the walls. Light entered the room through this hole, projecting an image onto the wall opposite. A blurred image it may have been, but a useful one nevertheless: smaller and smaller and more manageable, the camera obscura became the tool of choice of meticulous naturalists, an essential device for painters of Vermeer’s time and, with the subsequent addition of the lens, the most recognizable forebear of photography. One sometimes needs a camera obscura. A way of observing a subject at a later date, where it may be removed from its frenzied activity, isolated and outlined more accurately. Or a dark room, like those used by the photographers of old, where, from the silver halide emulsion, the scenes snatched that day would surface, like a minor miracle. Everything which, in reality, tries to flee at the earliest opportunity is captured there, forever, of course. This is to a large extent the aim of the pages of this diary: to discern a light, a shape, but before it fully comes into being and becomes the flesh of history. If there is no forest, you should start examining the trees one by one. GABRIEL INSAUSTI (San Sebastián, 1969) has published several works of poetry and essays. He has translated the works of Coleridge, Newman, Waugh, Richard Serra, Richard Deacon, Viktor Frankl, Robert Bringhurst and Leon Kass. He has also prepared bilingual editions of the works of the British Romantic era poets, Auden, Spender, Day Lewis, Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, W. H. Davies, Coleridge and Newman. Insausti is the recipient of awards such as the Premio Gerardo Diego, the Premio Ateneo Jovellanos and the Premio Arcipreste de Hita, and he was a shortlisted nominee for the Premio Nacional de Literatura in 2002.
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HISTORIA DE SIMONA JARAMILLO, DARÍO
MÉTODO FÁCIL Y RÁPIDO PARA SER POETA (VOL. I)
NOVEL PAGES: 192 ISBN: 978-84-15297-09-3 PUBLICATION: 2011
ESSAY PAGES: 640 ISBN: 978-84-15297-41-3 PUBLICATION: 2011
“Simona appeared in my life and we spent the six weeks recounted in the first part of this
“One of the first things that people attending a poetry workshops will ask themselves is
story without a history, without the passing of time, each and every movement governed by
this- if they really are poets. They intuitively know the answer, but they need to have it con-
a single planet, a single season, a single unit of time, Simona the planet, Simona the season,
firmed.
Simona the clock.We never spoke of love. I never did because she never mentioned it. She
In the workshop, the good poet can be recognized by his bad verses. Because these initial bad
never did because she refused to believe what we had together was love.”
verses, if they indeed lack depth and expertise, overflow, however, with superficiality. As the
DARÍO JARAMILLO AGUDELO was born in Santa Rosa de Osos (Antioquia, Columbia) in 1947.
announces what his prodigious vision will be when things are revealed to him in the most es-
He has published seven books of poems. He has seen three complete reprints carried out of
sential of their meanings.
writer observes the outer beauty of the world with attention, amazement and pleasure, he
his works and five representative selections. In prose, he has also published Guía para viaje-
The artist feels no different. It is society which makes this distinction for him. At a certain mo-
ros (1991); an autobiographical text, Historia de una pasión (Pre-Textos, 2006), and six novels:
ment, towards adolescence, he is nudged in the side and told, “You are not really one of us.”
La muerte de Alec (1983), Cartas cruzadas (1993), El juego del afiler (Pre-Textos, 2002), Novela
And he remembers that painful elbow in the ribs forever. So to be a poet is to have a perma-
con fantasma (Pre-Textos, 2004), La voz interior (Pre-Textos, 2006) and Memorias de un hom-
nent pain in your side. (…)
bre feliz (Pre-textos, 2010). In 2008, he published his only essay, Poesía en la canción popular latinoamericana (Pre-Textos).
Selecting poetry is like deciding against common sense. It is in no way practical. Yet it has the peculiarity that it conquers after death, just like el Cid.”
He is recognized as one of the greatest Columbian poets of the last hundred years. To date,
“Ser poeta”, by JAIME JARAMILLO.
he has been awarded the Premio de poesía de Colombia (1978). Historia de Simona was awarded the Premio de Novela Corta “José María de Pereda”, 2010.
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HASTA MÁS VER JOVER, JOSÉ LUIS
BÉLGICA MAILLARD, CHANTAL
COLLAGES PAGES: 128 ISBN: 978-84-15297-71-0 PUBLICATION: 2012
NOVEL PAGES: 344 ISBN: 978-84-15297-11-6 PUBLICATION: 2011
The collages which I have made over the last two years featured in this book, which is diffe-
“Ithaca, any Ithaca, is an inner place. That place of origin to which, at specific moments in
rent from previous works as indeed are all these works in themselves. This book contains half a dozen collages which exude emotions more becoming of poetry. This is something that I find somewhat irritating, as each discipline has its own place in the arts. There are another half dozen which I used as an experiment to find the quickest way of composing a collage: trusting your eye’s instinct (I remembered the term “eye speed”, which appears on the cover of A ojos vistas). Another four were intended to be both collages and visual poems at the same time. Finally, I have added five collages which have lain dozing in a file until I managed to find where they really belonged. In short, an assortment. A small part of this book was exhibited in November, 2010, in the gallery “La Zúa” in Madrid, the premises of my good friend and excellent engraver Perico Simón. Writing poems? Composing collages? Until we meet again.
our livesmarked by an essential tiredness, we yearn to return. It is not a geographical place, nor is it metaphysical, it is a state. My Ithaca is, or was, Belgium.” Bélgica is not an autobiography, nor is it a travel book. It is the journey of conscience. Chantal Maillard endeavours to provoke the reader by inviting him into the margins and to stray into the varying versions of reality to arise.Always crosscurrent,Maillard,whose writing spans a wide range of genres, vindicates the concise, synthetic yet open expression of our era against the aphorism of modernity.
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At twelve years of age CHANTAL MAILLARD was a novelist and at the age of fifteen a poet. She is the author of twenty-five literary works, which include essays, prose and poetry. She is a Doctor in Philosophy and specialized in the Philosophy and Religions of India at Banaras University. Her latest essay, Contra el arte, summarizes her work in this period of her life. She was awarded the Premio Nacional de Poesía in 2004 for her work Matar a Platón, and for Hilos, 2008. She has also received the award Premio Andalucía de la Crítica and the Premio de la Crítica. Her trilogy of “Diaries”, Filosofía en los días críticos (2001), Diarios indios (2005) and Husos (2006) can now be accompanied by the addition of Bélgica, in clear representation of a style which is defined by its range of registers and the author’s use of her own conscience as the object of her reflections.
LA PATRIA IMAGINADA DE MÁXIMO JOSÉ KAHN. VIDA Y OBRA DE UN ESCRITOR DE TRES EXILIOS. MARTÍN GIJÓN, MARIO ESSAY PAGES: 352 ISBN: 978-84-15297-51-2 PUBLICATION: 2012
HISTORIAS DE UN DIOS MENGUANTE MATEOS, JOSÉ NOVEL PAGES: 154 ISBN: 978-84-15297-28-4 PUBLICATION: 2011
This book is in response to the 50-year-old request made by Rosa Chacel and Juan Gil-Al-
“In Historias de un Dios menguante the reader will come across a meticulous, yet sugges-
bert, close friends of Máximo José Khan, to bring together this author’s scattered works, whilst at the same time submitting the writings of one of the most original Jewish thinkers and novelists of the twentieth century to critical interpretation. The works of Máximo José Kahn (Frankfurt am Main, 1897- Buenos Aires, 1953) hold a special place within the literature of the exiled Spanish Republican movement. Having emigrated to Spain in 1921, he regularly collaborated on Spanish and German publications and during the Spanish Civil War, he was named Consul of the Republic in Thessaloniki in 1937 and, after his incarceration in the Kasbah Tadla concentration camp, was exiled first to Mexico, and then to Buenos Aires . In addition to his wide ranging work as a journalist and essayist (almost 150 reports, articles and essays), Kahn is also the author of five books. Upon seeing himself become detached from German culture after the emergence of the Nazi movement, Kahn was forced to seek exile in Spain after the defeat of the Second Republic. It was the Second Republic which he had firmly believed would provide Judaism in Spain with a new opportunity, and would end up being considered the prophetic witness of a Jewish secular Diaspora, even after the birth of the State of Israel. La Patria imaginada de José Khan was awarded the Premio Internacional de Crítica Literaria Amado Alonso 2011.
tive prose, related in a voice which, without interlacing dark moments and catastrophes, conveys a love of life and of the characters portrayed within.” Narrated in a style detached from all rhetoric, yet poetic and direct at the same time, Historias de un Dios menguante, reveals itself to be a fresco of our times, of our dreams and our contradictions.” The accounts, the majority of which are set in the 1970s, following the Paris Spring of ‘68 , relate the stories of idealist, rootless youth, of devastated mothers, disillusioned intellectuals, murders unable to bear the burden of their own guilt…
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JOSÉ MATEO was born in Jerez de la Frontera in 1963. As a poet he gained acclaim with his book Una extraña ciudad, to which he has added works such as Días en claro, Canciones or La niebla, these latter three being published by Pre-Textos. In 2006, he compiled all his poetry published to date, including poems gathered together from journals and rare publications in a single volume under the title Reunión. He is also the author of a series of books of a singular style and difficult classification, in which the themes of life, thought and emotion, philosophy and poetry are intertwined, such as Soliloquios y divinanzas and La Razón y otras dudas, both published by this same publishing house.
ISLAS, ISLAS MOLINA TEMBOURY, PEDRO
SEGUNDA PARTE MONTES, JAVIER
POETRY PAGES: 64 ISBN: 978-84-15297-63-5 PUBLICATION: 2012
NOVEL PAGES: 192 ISBN: 978-84-92913-53-4 PUBLICATION: 2011
Por la noche, los barcos buscan compañía en puerto y se abarloan la bordas o se amarran al muelle, calientes, pegajosos igual que los amantes sobre la tierra firme se entregan en sus lechos al juego del amor. Los mástiles en alto, graciosamente erectos, el balanceo de cascos unos contra los otros, el tintineo de jarcias, enceladas, felices y el mar que les da cama que mece la obra muerta y envuelve sus caricias entre sábanas húmedas.
“The voice of Javier Montes is one of the most exciting in new Spanish narrative, as Granta points out”. Antonio Fontana, ABC cultural. A couples’ truncated relationship; an experimental filmdirector; the figure of Farley Granger, B-list actor and gay icon that takes a lead role in Rope by Alfred Hitchcock; the encounter of the main character with his double. Madrid and Rio de Janeiro, which we never come to see, are the urban backdrops around which the characters of Segunda parte move. A novel that pays homage to cinema is necessarily a novel which transcends cinema itself. It is not just a movie transposed on paper, it is literature told through a cinematic eye; and it is a thriller which leads into the realms of the symbolic. JAVIER MONTES (Madrid, 1976) graduated in History of Fine Arts (Universidad Complutense de Madrid and La Sorbonne Paris IV) and wrote, together with Andrés Barba, La ceremonia del porno (Premio Anagrama de Ensayo 2007). He has lectured in History of Fine Arts at the Colegio Español de Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) and regularly collaborates with cultural supplement ABC, El Viajero in El País, Revista de Libros, Revista de Occidente, Cla Práctica. He has
For this work, Pedro Molina Temboury was awarded the poetry prize Premio de Poesía Ja-
translated works by Shakespeare (King Lear, Coriolanus and Cymbeline), Dickens, Apolli-
vier Egea 2011.
naire, Pasolini.
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LOS HOMENAJES DE RAMÓN GAYA MUÑOZ MILLANES, JOSÉ
ESPACIOS EN FUGA. (POESÍA REUNIDA 19742010) OLIVEROS, ALEJANDRO
ESSAY PAGES: 96 ISBN: 978-84-15297-84-0 PUBLICATION: 2012
The “homages” by the writer and painter Ramón Gaya (1910-2005) represent a unique version of what perhaps most clearly characterizes modern art- the piece which reflects upon itself by retracing its own development to the preliminary stages of its creation. Yet Gaya does not simply bring to light the genesis of his paintings, but he does it with humility- he attributes creative drive to admiration. In his homages, Gaya always appears willing to paint, motivated by his closeness to his most revered predecessors, whom he summons to his studio and convenes selectively. In his desire to feel at one with his masters, he manifests his idea of what painting is. It is pure insistent power, impersonal in nature, which flows and reverberates against time itself. It comes as no surprise that in some of Ramón Gaya’s homages the painter creeps up on his subject unaware: reflected on the surface of the piano or in the corner of a mirror. So, as Miriam Moreno points out, the homages rendered by Gaya are a good example of “art understood from within the artist”, and according to Nietzsche’s understanding, in these works “the artist is he who both contemplates and paints at the same time”. In his homages Gaya allows us to enter the solitude of his studio, but we do not see him paint directly. What we do witness is the deepening of his gaze, creating a union with the gaze of the painter chosen, taken as his example. Upon observing him critically, he is enhanced by highlighting certain significant features. To quote his much loved Simone Weil, in Gaya’s homages , the artist cultivates an extreme form of attention which “conveys the creative force in the man”.
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POETRY PAGES: 404 ISBN: 978-84-15297-62-8 PUBLICATION: 2012
Éstas serán las últimas lluvias, se adivinan a lo lejos, amenazan con truenos y centellas, ráfagas grises que oscurecen los cielos despejados. Se aproximan y con radiante entusiasmo descienden sobre montes y sabanas, avivan el cauce lento de los ríos y alegran la mirada fija del rebaño. Los arroyos conocen el vano esfuerzo, las vegas lo recuerdan. Su presencia es la más efímera; su bondad es aislada por el humo y la sequía sin descanso. Las últimas lluvias del año sólo alegran a los ignorantes, ciegos y desahuciados.
ALEJANDRO OLIVEROS (1948) is currently considered to be one of the most important Venezuelan poets. In 1971 he founded the magazine Poesía and went on to direct Zona Tórrida until 2008. He has translated French, English and Italian works. With ten books of poetry already published in his name between 1974 and 2005, he has also written five books of essays.
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EL CUERPO SIN ÓRGANOS. PRESENTACIÓN DE GILLES DELEUZE PARDO, JOSÉ LUIS
VALLE ZAMURO PINO, CAMILO NOVEL PAGES: 336 ISBN: 978-84-15297-08-6 PUBLICATION: 2011
ESSAY PAGES: 308 ISBN: 978-84-15297-44-4 PUBLICATION: 2011
The thinking of Gilles Deleuze constitutes a benchmark in philosophy in the latter half of the 20th century. This book proposes following Deleuze’s movement of thought, the way in which he elaborates his subject matter and his movement from one problem to another or his way of constructing and deconstructing questions. This could be considered to be the style of the thinker, something which places him light years ahead in terms of his characteristic dynamism, despite such a difference from other thinkers being limited in terms of content analysis. To read Deleuze is, to a great extent, to accompany him on this experimental journey through which we acquire the capacity to diagnose our present by virtue of engaging with the movement
“The Venezuelan writer, Camilo Pino, debuts with this work, described by Almudena Grandes as “extraordinary and splendid”, and for which Pino was awarded the XV Premio de Novela Carolina Coronado. Valle Zamuro is a debut work set in the Venezuela of 1989, during the social explosion known as the Caracazo. Its pages immerse the reader in a feverish world and leave him enriched by an experience of collective values. This is a journey through the emotions found on the way, a rollercoaster of fortune which passes from the comic to the tragic, from the ridiculous to the sublime. A fugitive judge, a drug-using soldier, blind men- by choice, elderly ladies working as vigilantes, Valle Zamuro is mutating and nothing or nobody is what it seems.
which defines the very uncompromising and not always friendly newness of our times. CAMILO PINO was born in Caracas in 1970. He studied Journalism at the Universidad Central JOSÉ LUIS PARDO (Madrid, 1954) is the author of the works: Transversales. Texto sobre los textos (1978); La metafísica. Preguntas sin respuesta y problemas sin solución (1989); La banalidad (1989); Deleuze: violentar el pensamiento (1990); Sobre los espacios: pintar, escribir, pensar (1991) and La intimidad (Pre-Textos, 1996, 2004). He is also the co-author of Preferiría no ha-
de Venezuela and Communications at Westminster University, London. He participated in the poetry workshop at the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Rómulo Gallegos. He has worked as a journalist, television scriptwriter and diplomat. He currently resides in Miami, where he wrote Valle Zamuro, his first novel.
cerlo. Ensayos sobre Bartleby in collaboration with Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben (PreTextos, 2000), and Palabras cruzadas together with Fernando Savater (Pre-textos, 2003).
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LA ETERNIDAD Y UN DÍA SABORIT, JOSÉ
MI BUENOS AIRES QUERIDO SCHOO, ERNESTO
POETRY PAGES: 71 ISBN: 978-84-15297-60-4 PUBLICATION: 2012
ESSAY PAGES: 148 ISBN: 978-84-15297-30-7 PUBLICATION: 2011
El sol estaba fuera, al descubierto,
Presented with the challenge of writing about today’s complex city, and the impossibility of
sus rayos se posaban sobre el mundo,
covering all of its closely-woven urban fabric- indeed, it is made up of various different cities, each with its own characteristics, unmistakably different from the next adjoining neighbourhood-, I felt hat there was only one choice open to me: to refer to “my” city (this is where the title of this book comes from), that ring-fenced space in which I had spent my already long life. After rereading my definitive and totally subjective journey through the streets, places and buildings that are familiar to me, I notice the boundaries, perhaps somewhat limited, of my Buenos Aires adventures: the barrio Norte, la Recoleta, Palermo, something of the centre, parts of the more up-market neighbourhoods, like Belgrano or Flores. Not much more: there are entire districts of the city which are alien to me, and I regret this. Yet I want to remain faithful to the backdrops I know so well and not claim ecumenical citizenship, that good fortune to be a true porteño, that imaginary aspiration of so many a stale bard.
lo iban inventando, la vista se abismaba y yo con ella dejaba mi conciencia en el asombro de las epifanías. El mundo estaba allí, recién fundado, y en el claro extravío de sus formas yo me hallé más desnudo que en el lienzo profundo de mi noche.
JOSÉ SABORIT VIGUER was born in Valencia, the city in which he still resides and where he paints, writes and works as Professor of Fine Arts of San Carlos at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. His paintings have been exhibited in art galleries and institutions, and compiled in various catalogues. Together with Manuel Ramírez, he directs the collection of books on art and literature Correspondencias (Pre-Textos-UPV). In 2012 he exhibited his work Más al Sur at the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno.
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ERNESTO SCHOO was born in Buenos Aires on 12th October, 1925, and since 1948 has dedicated his life to journalism, specializing in culture, the arts and performance arts. In 1988 he was awarded the Guggenheim scholarship; between 1996 and 1998 he worked as the general and artistic director of the Teatro de San Martín in Buenos Aires and was a member of the board of directors of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes between 2000 and 2004. He has been awarded the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of Culture of France and the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
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RASTREOS Y OTROS POEMAS SEGOVIA, TOMÁS
DE LA FATIGA DE LO VISIBLE SOBCZYK, MAREK
POETRY PAGES: 122 ISBN: 978-84-15297-78-9 PUBLICATION: 2012
ESSAY PAGES: 184 ISBN: 978-84-15297-33-8 PUBLICATION: 2011
For Tomás Segovia the act of self-affirmation unquestionably consisted of writing poetry
“A lucid and well-argued essay on contemporary painting and the evolution of the crea-
and his process of self-discovery through time, yet without ever renouncing his commitment to life. Writing poetry was his raison d’être, yet without ever intending to replace life itself with his poetry. The great poets never tried to offer us answers or simplify or categorize the world, yet they unravel it before our very eyes, laying bare its complexities, simply providing proof that it exists and they exist in it. When we stand before a genuine poet, not only should we accept that it is indeed he who writes the poem, but that it is also his language, a language which indelibly stamps the poet’s very own nature upon his work, a language through which he seeks to be identified in his totality, until he is cancelled out within it. In poetry what is fundamental, as Tomás Segovia tirelessly tells us, is not to lie because part of its mission is to never let us forget that the natural exists. For Tomás Segovia poetry was a “warm art”, because it was made of palpable life, exposed to the elements; something to be breathed because he knew how to love reality, not for being the abstract possibility that it was not, yet for the real plenitude that it indeed is.
tive image.” “In his essay, Marek Sobczyk condemns the cynicism and hypocrisy surrounding modern art and advocates a greater awareness of its needs.” The question which he proposes to answer in his essay is the following: “why, in our times, choose such oppressive, traditional, manual medium and materials?” This is a question which interlinks with the confirmation of a singular fact: “Too many artists use paint without thinking about the painting”, and he then goes on to vindicate the concept of painting in its most intimate and undeniable essence, yet always based on the criteria of discipline and learning. “To be a painter means assuming with a greater or lesser degree of humility an opacity which tends towards concealment.” MAREK SOBCZYK was born in Warsaw in 1955. He is a painter, graphic designer, art theorist and educationalist. He studied painting from 1975 to 1980 in the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw. He currently resides in Spain.
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EL GATO ENCERRADO TRAPIELLO, ANDRÉS
APENAS SENSITIVO TRAPIELLO, ANDRÉS
NOVEL PAGES: 200 ISBN: 978-84-92913-92-3 PUBLICATION: 1990 / 2011
NOVEL PAGES: 384 ISBN: 978-84-15297-07-9 PUBLICATION: 2011
“Andrés Trapiello has made a life for himself at the same time that he has given life to his work. Because his work is his life and his life is his work. I have keenly followed his steps until he disappeared from my view. But by then I had already understood. The charm and wit of his diaries is natural; there are no tricks or illusions.” MIGUEL DELIBES, Valladolid, June, 2008. This “novel in progress”, which, although it is not, works like one. It is akin to the redemption of the reader’s flat, grey memories, which needed only the brushstroke of the diarist to make them lustrous. Everything is day-to-day, yet with a streak of the prodigious, and at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe in novel-style accounts, we can see that this certificate of proof of life and existence is nothing short of enthralling. This is literature which tells no lies, without the run-of-the-mill tall stories. Only the “teachings of age”, as a poet once said, the twists and turns of life itself.
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“I
have never really known how to explain that strange association which led me to link that timepiece to the title of this book, nor how to make night out of day. Could it be that the letter e has disappeared from the word sileo in the Latin saying (Sine sole sileo- Without the sun, I’m silent.) just as if the very word itself felt compelled to set an example if it was to remain in this world? Or is it that the time which a sundial measures, and that of all clocks for that matter, is just a part of time itself, only the least sensory form of it? Who can say for sure? No less mysterious are the corridors in these books which connect life and death, laughter and sorrow, happiness and sadness or all those other passageways we travel along daily, pretending, to a greater or lesser degree, to be something we are not in order to survive.” ANDRÉS TRAPIELLO was born in Manzanedo de Torío, León, in 1953, and has resided in Madrid since 1975. His first four books of poems, Junto al agua (1980), Las tradiciones (1982), La vida fácil (1985) and El mismo libro (1989) have been compiled into a single volume, Las tradiciones (1991 and 2002). These were followed by Acaso una verdad (Editorial Pre-Textos, 1993), Rama desnuda (2001) and Un sueño en otro (2004). His work Salón de pasos perdidos, “una novela en marcha” has seen the publication of sixteen volumes to date, all by the publishing house Pre-Textos. As a novelist he has published El buque fantasma (1992), La noche de los Cuatro Caminos (2001), Los amigos del crimen perfecto (2003), Al morir don Quijote (2004) and Los confines (2009) amongst others. His work as an essayist features Clásicos de traje gris (1990), Las vidas de Miguel de Cervantes (1993), Las armas y las letras (1994 y 2010), Los nietos del Cid (1997), El arca de las palabras (2006) and Imprenta Moderna (2006).
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SEGUNDA OSCURIDAD TRAPIELLO, ANDRÉS
NO SE FUSILA EN DOMINGO URIEL, PABLO
POETRY PAGES: 96 ISBN: 978-84-15297-73-4 PUBLICATION: 2012
NOVEL PAGES: 444 ISBN: 978-84-8191-703-1 PUBLICATION: 2005 / 2008
“A text whose deep human qualities, dramatic character and sobriety of narration are de-
Duran siglos los días en el niño, largo y corto su tiempo como un sueño. Los meses del adulto son, en cambio, a causa de la brega que es su vida, un trabajo penoso de atahona y molienda de tantas ilusiones, que se le van en ansias locamente. Y, sin haberse dado cuenta, un día el hombre reconoce que ya todo su futuro ha pasado y que los años, unos detrás de otros, van cayendo con vértigo fatal como las últimas migas de tiempo en el reloj de arena, a menos que suceda como ahora: el olor de unas lilas. Las primeras tras un invierno riguroso y lóbrego. De pronto la ebriedad de este perfume a miel, a manantial, a azules brisas ha conseguido ser más que memoria, que el niño y el adulto y quien ya soy en un punto se encuentren siendo iguales, siendo plena conciencia de tal fuga, sintiéndola al vivirla como eterna, lilas de abril, lilas fuera del tiempo.
eply moving […] I have read numerous accounts regarding the repression exercised on both the Republican and National sides […], yet none exceeds what is portrayed on the pages written by Pablo Uriel […]. Substance, deliberation, a total lack of Manichaeism […] a deep desperation brought about by the evil and stupidity of men […] in short, an admirable work, with many moments which will remain etched on the memory, as if they had been experienced personally.” From the preface by IAN GIBSON. 1936. A young doctor assigned to a small village in Aragon is caught unaware by the National Uprising whilst canoeing down the Ebro river. This is how the Spanish Civil War begins for Pablo Uriel, who graduated in Medicine at the Universidad de Zaragoza. He was a member of the Real Academia de Medicina de Galicia, elected to the position of first president of the Ateneo de la Cultura in recognition of his vast human qualities and cultural contributions. This novel based on the author’s memories of the Civil War provides a lucid analysis of both warring factions, the national and the republican, and a shrewd characterization both of characters and situations in equal measure. It is an impassioned account of breathtaking simplicity.
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LA VIDA QUE RESPIRA VÉLEZ, NICANOR
TOMAS FALSAS VIDAL VALICOURT, JOSÉ
POETRY PAGES: 80 ISBN: 978-84-15297-31-4 PUBLICATION: 2011
NOVEL PAGES: 152 ISBN: 978-84-15297-57-4 PUBLICATION: 2012
NICANOR VÉLEZ (Medellín, 1959) is the author of two books of poems: La memoria del tacto.
Bruno Konstantin, a cinema director fallen on hard times, tries to make up for a prolonged
Instantes para Gruchenka (Badajoz, Ediciones del Oeste, 2002; México, Ediciones Sin Nom-
period of crisis and his disappearance into public oblivion, by travelling around the world in-
bre, 2007) and La luz que parpadea (México, Ediciones Sin Nombre, 2004). In 2008, the Es-
tent on filming the ultimate work of art. Yet he veers from one failure to the next, from out-
cuela de Arte de Mérida (Spain) published an artist’s book with illustrations by Vicente Rojo,
take to outtake, from blunder to blunder. And it is, indeed, these blunders which define the
which included a selection of poems, titled Huellas. As an essayist he has written on José Asun-
film’s aesthetic. From Lisbon to Formentera and from Iceland to Soria: the wanderings of a
ción Silva, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Gonzalo Rojas, José Ángel Valente, Juan Ramón Jimé-
desperate man. Unaware, he will end up making a type of documentary about his own ob-
nez, Eduardo Milán, Giovanni Quessep, in addition to his general studies on poetry. After
sessions, about his own madness. For the project, he will try to win back his ex-wife, Cristina,
leaving Columbia in 1981, he resided in Paris, where he graduated from the École des Hau-
something which will only serve to complicate matters further.
tes Études en Sciencies Sociales. Since the latter part of 1984 he has resided in Spain, where he graduated in Spanish Philology at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and was awar-
Tomas Falsas was awarded the literary prize Premio de Novela Breve Juan March Cencillo
ded the DEA in Poética del Verso y de la Prosa at the Universidad de Barcelona. Since 1989 he
2011.
has worked as a publisher. He founded and directed the poetry collection of the publishing house Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de Lectores, for whom he has edited fifty volumes dedicated to the great poets of our times; for the same publishers he was also the executive editor for the complete works of Borges, García Lorca, Paz, Neruda, Cortázar, Valente, Nerval, Rubén Darío and Gil de Biedma.
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NEXT TITLES Los penúltimos días, de HÉCTOR ÁLVAREZ MURENA Los penúltimos días (1949-1950), is made up of a series of texts which first saw the light of day in the now legendary journal Sur, founded by the Ocampo sisters, in the form of a brief paradoxical diary of unnerving contemporaneity. HÉCTOR ÁLVAREZ MURENA, better known as H.A. Murena (1923 Buenos Aires – 1975) was an Argentine writer. An essayist, narrator, poet and translator, he wrote some 20 books covering the range of literary genres and was a regular collaborator with the journal Sur and the cultural supplement of the newspaper La Nación. He played an important role in introducing and promoting German schools of thought in the Spanish language.
Memoria de la inocente niña homicida, de ISABEL CAMBLOR Memoria de la inocente niña homicida is a bitter-sweet, comic-tragic, even quixotic novel. It is a story in which love, insult, nostalgia, loneliness, the harshest of realities and the most moving innocence randomly alternate as a powerful tension gradually takes hold of the story. It is, above all, a reflection, a deep, lucid reflection on inevitable human fragility. ISABEL CAMBLOR (Madrid) has collaborated with the written press and literary reviews and has published short stories and articles in the media since 1998. Her first novel, Perdona el desorden won special recognition by the jury of the literary prize Joven y Brillante, she was also a shortlisted nominee for the IV Premio Río Manzanares literary awards. Her third novel, Maldita Cenicienta (Algaida, 2005), has been translated into German, French and Rumanian. Her fourth novel, Dios es una dama con moño, was published by Planeta in 2008. For Memoria de la inocente niña homicida Isabel Cambor was awared the literary prize Premio Novela Corta Barbastro 2011.
El olvido de sí, de PABLO D’ ORS The latest novel by PABLO D’ORS, author of El stupor y la maravilla (Pre-Textos), is titled El olvido de sí and chronicles the life of Charles Eugéne de Foucauld, Viscount of Faucould (18581916), a French religious traveller (Syria, Jerusalem, Tamanrasset…) who lived with the Tuareg in Algeria. The book is narrated in the first person and describes the adventurous and perilous life of the viscount.
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EDITORIAL PRE-TEXTOS L U I S S A N T Á N G E L 10, 1- C 4 6005 VA L E N C I A E S PA Ñ A Te lf. 9 63 333 2 2 6 Fa x. 9 63 9 55 4 7 7 e- m a i l: i n fo@ pre- textos. com w w w. p re- textos . com