De Alemania
Mexico: Joaquín Mortiz, 1970. Printed pictorial soft cover. 159, [1] pp. 7 x 4.5 in. Very good. Item #10397
Ulises Carrión's second book, and final work of narrative, in its first and only edition.
Carrión (1941-89) was a promising young writer from his early age: as a teenager, he published in the cultural supplement of the Diario de Jalapa and moved to Mexico City to study literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). While a student, he worked as an editor for university literary magazines and at the library of the contemporary art institucion La casa del Lago.
De Alemania is a short story collection and Carrión's final work of narrative literature. Scholars have identified the presence of the theoretical interrogations that would shortly lead to his decision to abandon narrative literature and the traditional form of the book, making this particular work pivotal in Carrión's bibliography.
In part due to the general ambiance of censorship, repression, and efforts to centralize cultural production under the umbrella of "national culture", in 1964 Carrión declined a grant from the Mexican Association of Writers and departed for Europe. While there, Carrión attended graduate school, published his first two books--La muerte de Miss O and De Alemania--and connected with the European avant-garde, particularly in Amsterdam, where he settled in 1971. His work with the book form, mail art, and conceptual reflections on language earned him an international reputation as one of the most original artists working in the avant-garde tradition. His discovery and celebration by a new generation of artists in the last decade has made his early work highly sought-after, none more so than his first published works.
The second published book by a major Latin American avant-garde and conceptual artist, his final before renouncing the narrative form.
Price: $350.00