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.
53 pages, printed on odd-numbered pages. 7-1/4 by 9-3/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Venablos. An essay, printed on a dot-matrix printer, about Medardo Vitier, a writer from Matanzas who was the father of Cintio Vitier. The text is illustrated with digital reproductions of old photographs and illustrations. Designed.....
A double pergamino (two large folded leaves connected at the top) in a decorated envelope. 11 by 8 inches, unfolding to 60 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Inicios. Undoubtedly, this is one of the masterpieces of the Ediciones Vigía and a fully-realized example of Rolando Estévez's distinctive pergamino (folded.....
113 pages. 6-3/4 by 8-3/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Paseo. Poems and prose by 20th-century authors mimeographed from typescript on coarse brown paper. The book is illustrated with decorated green and white paper cutouts as well as mounted photocopies of photographs by Olivia Manning, printed by Editorial Praxis.....
26 pages. 9-1/4 by 10-1/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Venablos. Literary criticism; text mimeographed from typescript, with a mimeographed reproduction of a portrait of Paz. The size of this book suggests some interesting questions about its manufacture as the dimensions of the sheets (9 inches wide) exceeds the.....
29 pages, plus an attached pergamino (scroll) illustration. 7-1/2 by 11 inches; the scroll unrolls to 6-1/2 by 18 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. Odios falsos is both a significant literary work and an important marker in the development of Ediciones Vigía and Rolando Estévez as.....
49 pages. 6-1/4 by 8-3/4 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Aforos. A musical play set in a Havana cabaret; printed on white paper reproducing a border drawing of dressing-room lights by Rolando Estévez, who also designed the book and the collaged illustrations. The cover is embellished with handcoloring.....
Pergamino (folded broadside). 7 by 6-1/2 inches; unfolding to 23 inches. Edition size not noted. An announcement for an exhibition of drawings by Estévez held in March 1996 at the Centro de Arte Matanzas, Sala Polivalente. The pergamino has three sections, all mimeographed on Kraft paper. The upper portion includes.....
Pergamino (folded broadside). 7-1/2 inches by 45 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A horizontal pergamino, sometimes referred to as a "plegable", which translates as "folding" but used as a noun. This pergamino variant is much less common than the vertical, hanging structures favored by the press.....
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......
Pergamino (folded broadside). 8-1/2 by 5-1/4 inches; unfolding to 20 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A poem, assembled from several sheets of Kraft paper, mimeographed from typescript with a border illustrating a city street. With a string for hanging at the top and a bellyband with.....
A pergamino subcategory that Ediciones Vigía refers to as a "cartucho", a Cuban term to refer to flat paper bags used to deliver products; in this case 10 broadsides laid into a brown paper bag. Sheets 6 by 8 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección not noted. One of the.....
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.....
Pergamino (folded broadside). 8-3/4 by 10-1/2 inches, unfolding to 40 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A poem broadside assembled from several mimeographed sheets of Kraft paper with both ragged and sculpted edges. There are illustrations and a decorative border, with some handcoloring, as well as mimeographed.....
Pergamino (folded broadside). 8 by 4-1/2 inches, unfolding to 35 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A poem, mimeographed on orange paper with handcoloring, with a string for hanging affixed at the top. Illustrated by Sigfredo Ariel. OCLC: CSL DEIAI EEM EYM FQG. Very good, with some.....
18 pages. 6-1/4 by 8-3/4 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Barquitos. Poems for children by a two-time winner of the Casa de las Américas prize. Digitally printed on tan recycled paper. Designed and illustrated by Marialva Ríos with collages, many handcolored, including the covers. OCLC: DEIAI EEM FQG.....
Poems, translated from the Russian by Juan Luis Hernández Milián into Spanish, and printed on gray-brown recycled paper. Designed and illustrated by Enrique Ramos. Covers with paper collage, handcoloring, and yarn adornment; text pages with identical drawn borders. Dated based on inscriptions from the translator believed to be from the.....
54 pages. 6-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Clásicos. Poems, translated from the Ukranian into Spanish by Juan L. Hernández Milián. Digitally printed on white paper with collage illustrations on the covers. Designed and illustrated by Rolando Estévez. Issued with a shaped bookmark of a tree morphing.....
A single sheet of Kraft cardstock folded to make four pages. 5-1/2 by 8-1/4 inches. Colección Andante. Edition size not noted.
A single poem designed by Adrián Milián Suárez. Illustrated with paper collages and a shaped front cover.
OCLC: IQU EEM. Fine.
18 pages. 7-1/4 by 9-1/2 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A notable book in the press's design evolution, for the number of illustrations by Estévez, and it's literary significance. This is the first publication of the collection of poems by one of the most significant Cuban.....
[21] leaves. 7-1/2 by 9-1/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Andante. A children's song with musical notation, lyrics, and dance moves illustrated with line drawings. The author, a music teacher, won the 1994 Premio Televisión Cubana for this song. The book is printed on one side of each sheet.....
74 pages. 6-3/4 by 9-1/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A collection of poems digitally printed on Kraft paper. The cover is a collage of paper and leather scraps. Designed and illustrated by Ivet Báez Andux. OCLC: BNCJM CLU CRU CUI DEIAI DEUEN DRB EEM EYM.....
9 leaves. 6-1/2 by 12 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. This book, designed by Rolando Estévez, is a good example of a transitional work between the classic Ediciones Vigía style and the more elaborate works he has produced under the Ediciones El Fortín imprint. Domínguez's poems are reproduced.....
Hernández Milián, Juan Luis (editor and translator)
63 pages. 7 by 10-1/2 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Clásicos. An anthology of Russian poetry translated into Spanish and mimeographed onto off-white paper. The illustrations, by Rolando Estévez, are mimeographed onto Kraft paper. The sheets are stapled between coarse cardstock, with a dust jacket illustrated with two handcolored.....
Caluff Pagés, Bertha (text); illustrations by Enelio Suárez
Horizontal pergamino (folded broadside or plegable). 37 by 9-3/4 inches, unfolded. Edition size not noted. In the 1980s, many of the items produced by Ediciones Vigía were announcements for events in Matanzas. This is a particularly elaborate example, with the thick Kraft paper extending nearly a meter in length. Glued.....
11 leaves; irregularly paginated. 6-1/2 by 9 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. Poems mimeographed from handwritten masters on gray recycled paper. Winner of the Premio Nacional de Poesía América Bobia; an expanded version of this collection was published in Havana in 2003. Illustrated with mimeographed collaged.....