A 320-page catalog of more than 300 handmade books from Ediciones Vigía, Cuadernos Papiro, and Ediciones El Fortín over the last 30 years.
Short videos of individual books are available on my YouTube Channel.
Ediciones Vigía
Of the three publishers, Ediciones Vigía is the oldest—established in 1985 by Alfredo Zaldívar and Rolando Estévez—and the best known inside and outside of Cuba. It has been the subject of exhibitions in many countries and even a monograph in the US, the recently released Handmade in Cuba.
Estévez, a set designer by profession, established the design aesthetic for Vigía. A large group of writers, artists, and artisans in the Vigía circle collaborate to publish hundreds of individually designed, and hand assembled books.
Typically, one artist creates a maquette for a book and then a group of artisans will figure out how to replicate the design 200 times. Most early Vigía books had print runs of 100 and later 200 copies, because that was as many as it was possible to produce before the mimeograph masters wore out, a tradition that continued after new printing technology was acquired.
While Ediciones Vigía has published many well-known writers from Europe and the Americas, it has retained its focus on the community of writers in and around Matanzas. Few publishers anywhere have produced so many literary books by regional writers and Vigía’s local emphasis is unparalleled among the makers of artist’s books.
In the post-Estévez era, several designers who once worked alongside him have begun to shape a new Vigía aesthetic, notably Elizabeth Valero Molina, Frank David Valdés, Adrián Milián Suárez, Marialva Ríos, and Johann E. Trujillo.
Ediciones El Fortín
Ediciones El Fortín is a spinoff of Vigía, founded by Estévez in 2014. This new Matanzas imprint claims to be based in “Bellamar”, which means “lovely sea.” Bellamar is intended to counter the violence implied by naming a city Matanzas, which might be translated as “Murderville.”. El Fortín produces books in small numbers, usually fewer than 50 copies, with elaborate structures and packaging. While Fortín books are much closer to Estévez’s one-of-a-kind book-art pieces than the typical Vigía title, they also make extensive use of Vigía-style handcoloring and paper and fabric collage.
Cuadernos Papiro
Cuadernos Papiro started as a papermaking collective in 1994 and began publishing books in 2001 under the direction of Tatiana Zúñiga Góngora and Manuel Arias Silveira. The press is in Holguín, on the opposite end of the island from Havana. Cuadernos Papiro (whose name translates as papyrus notebooks or papyrus quartos) makes all its own paper from recycled materials. Its founders obtained a linotype machine so they could print all their books with lead type. A dedication to obsolete equipment is central to Papiro’s vision. Most of Papiro’s books are illustrated with relief prints, most often linocuts and collagraphs.
175 pages. 7 by 9-1/2 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Trébol. Introduction by Zaida Capote Cruz. Translated from the Italian by Dulce María Loynaz. This is a Spanish translation of the Italian novel Ella non rispose (1914), which Loynaz worked on between 1938 and 1941 and left unpublished at.....
14 by 7 inches (oblong). Edicion size ca. 100 copies. The front cover, a sheet of handmade paper with tobacco fibers, is die-cut to reveal a discarded medical X-ray. It opens down to reveal two books, bound Japanese-style to either edge of the rear cover. The left-hand book is a collection.....
15 pages. 6-1/4 by 11 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A chapbook of poems that won the Premio Poesía América Bobia 2011. Photocopied on brown recycled paper. Designed and illustrated by Abdel de la Campa with handcolored collage elements and bits of cloth. One illustration.....
4 sheets, 8-inches square in a five-part folder that measures 8-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches when closed. One of 50 copies. Colección Clásicos. The four sheets include two prose poems from Tagore's Gitanjali, nos. 26 and 64, in Spanish translation; an about-the-author note; and a colophon. The text is photocopied on stiff.....
Six leaves on varying paper stocks; many with collage elements; one handcolored. 9 by 6-1/2 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. The text consists of a single leaf of poems. The other leaves, which serve as a colophon and illustrations, are laid into a paper folder in.....
Pergamino (folded broadside), with smaller pergaminos attached, in a cardboard sleeve. 27 by 20 inches unfolded. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Trébol. This short excerpt from Trouillot's nonfiction account of the day of Haiti's bicentennial is presented in the original French and in Spanish translation. The text and illustrations are.....
Trujillo, Iraida; María Victoria Oliver; and José White
123 and 47 pages. Two books, 8-1/2 by 11-1/4 inches in a slightly larger paper box. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Andante. With design and illustrations by Rolando Estévez. White was an important Afro-Cuban composer who was born in Matanzas in 1836 and died in Paris in 1918. The first.....
11 pages. 5-1/4 by 7-1/2 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del Estero. A poetry chapbook, designed and illustrated by the author, a frequent book designer for Ediciones Vigía. The text is photocopied on recycled paper with several handcolored collages. The stiff paper covers are wrapped in an open weave.....
12 pages. 5-1/2 by 7-1/2 inches. Edition size not noted. This is the catalog of an exhibition of Valdés's sculptures and three-dimensional pieces held at Ediciones Vigía. Valdés is a regular illustrator and designer for the press. The catalog includes photocopied photographs of the works, with accompanying description. Augustina Ponce.....
[44] pages. 6 by 14 inches, plus outcroppings. One of 35 copies. Colección Puente de Hierro. A collection of song lyrics in Spanish, with English and French translations. Design and illustrations by Rolando Estévez, included many collage elements and a large fold-out illustration at the back. The binding is one of.....
A horizontal pergamino (plegable), housed in a star-shaped paper folder. 9-1/2 by 60 inches unfolded. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Inicios. Song lyrics by a Cuban singer-songwriter, designed and illustrated by Rolando Estévez. The text and illustrations are printed on various types of paper mounted to the folded Kraft-paper.....
Pergamino (folded broadside). 7-1/4 by 7-1/2 inches; unfolding to 23 inches. One of 100 copies. Colección Zapote. The lyrics of two songs, "El octavo día" and "Estampas matanceras", mimeographed from typescript with spot illustrations by Camilo Venegas Yero. Assembled from sheets of brown paper with a handcolored border and a......
27 leaves. 7-1/2 by 8 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A collection of poems, mimeographed from typescript on the front side of sheets of off-white paper. In the late 1980s, Vega Chapú published several chapbooks with Ediciones Vigía; in subsequent years, he has published many.....
44 pages. 7-1/2 by 9-3/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del Estero. A collection of poems by a Havana-based writer who was born in the Soviet Union. The book is designed and illustrated by Marialva Ríos with several collages. The text is printed (photocopied?) on brown Kraft-like paper. The.....
9 pages. 7-1/4 by 10-3/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A short prose piece about the arrival of Spaniards in Cuba and the destruction of the indigenous cultures there. The author is a professor of medicine in Matanzas. The text is photocopied on white paper. The.....
[12] pages. 6-1/2 by 9 inches. One of 100 copies. Colección Clásicos. Poems by Verlaine in the original French with Spanish translations René Suárez Seva, who also selected the contents. This is the third entry in a series of similar books of poetry in translation issued by Ediciones Vigía in.....
79 pages. 6-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A substantial collection of poems, most written in the 1990s. Designed and illustrated by Ariel López. The text is photocopied onto tan recycled paper with printed borders and full-page illustrations between the sections. The covers are.....
93 leaves (mimeographed on one side only). 7-1/4 by 10-1/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. Poems by Vitier, with a long introduction by Roberto Méndez. Illustrated and designed by Rolando Estévez. The poems are reproduced from typescript, with titles in calligraphy and small vignettes by Estévez.....
A pergamino (folded broadside). 8-1/2 by 5-3/4 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Andante. A four-page photocopied reproduction of a handwritten score for "La bella cubana", with a short biography of the Afro-Cuban composer born in Matanzas in 1836. He died in Paris in 1918. "La bella cubana", a......
31 pages, printed on odd-numbered pages only. 6-7/8 by 7 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. Poems by one of the co-founders of the press, mimeographed from typescript on various stocks of low-quality paper. The sheets are stapled between cardstock with a Kraft paper dust jacket illustrated.....
113 pages, but printed only on the odd pages. 9-1/2 by 7 inches (oblong). An edition of 200 copies. Colección Venablos. An exploration of the influence of Catalán culture in Matanzas, Cuba, and the connection between the Virgin of Montserrat in Catalonia and the Ermita de Monserrate in the hills.....
Pergamino (folded broadside). 7-1/2 by 7-1/4 inches; unfolding to 33 inches. One of 200 signed and numbered copies. Colección not noted, but del San Juan. An exemplary pergamino from the fifth year of Ediciones Vigía. This broadside offers a poem, mimeographed on several pieces of stiff Kraft paper and assembled.....