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.
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.....
16 pages. 7-1/2 by 12 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del Estero. A single long poem photocopied on white paper. The illustrations, which incorporate images of the god Pan along with pieces of wood and twine, are by Johann E. Trujillo. The covers are thin wooden boards mounted.....
43 pages. 9-1/4 by 8 inches (oblong). An edition of 200 copies. Colección Barquitos. Ocean-inspired stories for children. Text photocopied onto white paper, with handcolored and collaged illustrations by Marialva Ríos. The cover is also decorated with bits of shell, seaweed, and sand collected on the beaches of Matanzas. Issued.....
82 pages. 8-1/4 by 11 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Aforos. A play by Piñera in the original Spanish and an English translation by Linda S. Howe. Text photocopied on recycled paper. Designed and illustrated by Mayra Alpízar Linares. The illustrations are cutouts of figures pasted on handcolored backgrounds.....
14 pages. 6 by 11 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Clásicos. A single poem in Spanish with an accompanying English translation. The author is a late Chilean poet. Designed and illustrated by Elizabeth Valero Molina. Introduction by Héctor R. Rivero Martínez. OCLC: BLSTP CLU CRU CRU CUY DEIAI.....
173 pages. 7-1/2 by 9-3/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del Estero. An anthology of three books of poems by a Havana poet, photocopied on white paper. Designed and illustrated by Marialva Ríos. Prologue by Roberto Manzano. The cover is assembled from pieces of corrugated paper mounted with collaged.....
87 pages. 7-1/2 by 11 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección Andante. A collection of Montalvo's song lyrics printed as poems on brown recycled paper, with a section of musical notation printed on white paper. Introduction by Vicente Feliú. Designed and extensively illustrated by Frank David Valdés. An attractive book.....
45 pages. 5-7/8 by 8-1/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. Poems printed on brown recycled paper. Designed by Enrique Ramos with line drawings by Carlos José García. OCLC: BLSTP BNCJM CRU CUI DEIAI EYM FQG FUG IND IQU STF UMK ZCU. Very good, with some scuffing.....
87 pages. 9 by 9-1/4 inches. One of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. Poems printed on unbleached recycled paper, illustrated by Rolando Estévez with many reproductions of a series of drawings of figures in silhouette in front of a masonry wall. In his artist's note at the back, Estévez.....
43 pages. 8-1/2 by 8-3/4 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. The author's second book with Ediciones Vigía, a mimeographed collection of poems, designed and illustrated by Ariel López Gónzalez. While not noted on the colophon, it appears that this edition was signed by the author.....
35 pages. 8-1/2 by 9-1/2 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Venablos. Art and literary criticism about Angel Gaztelu, a Catholic priest who ran in literary and artistic circles in Havana. He brought contemporary Cuban art into churches and was a contributor to the important literary journal "Orígenes." This.....
49 pages. 8 by 9-1/2 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del Estero. Poems by a writer born in Cuba and living in Europe, printed on estraza (sugarcane waste) paper. The book was designed and illustrated by Yoban Enrique Trujillo with a pictorial collage cover assembled from a dozen.....
67 pages. 7 by 9-1/2 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del Estero. A collection of poems about Paris photocopied on various kinds of recycled industrial paper stocks. This is a particularly inventive book designed and illustrated by Rolando Estévez. The cover is linen with paper collage elements. This cover.....
45 pages. 8-1/4 by 10 inches. An edition of 200 signed copies. Colección del San Juan. Poems mimeographed on estraza (sugarcane waste) paper, with line drawings by Mayra Alpízar mimeographed on pink paper. This collection won the Premio del Tricentenario de Matanzas. Unlike so many Ediciones Vigía books that state.....
181 pages plus [4] leaves. 8 by 10-1/2 inches. One of 200 signed copies. Colección Clásicos. Diego (1920–1994) was a Cuban poet in the Origenes group. This is one of his last books, a personal collection of classic poems in English, each reprinted with an introductory essay and Diego's Spanish.....
37 pages. 7-1/4 by 12 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección Barquitos. Seven poems and four rondas (rounds, or rotas, in English) written for children. Exuberantly handcolored throughout. Text digitally printed on white paper with Kraft paper dividers. A short poetic broadside in the shape of an owl is.....
21 pages. 7 by 10 inches, plus outcrops. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A collection of poems by a Cuban-Czech computer programmer who worked for several publishers in Matanzas. The manuscript won the 2011 Premio Digdora Alsonso. This book is one of the more elaborate Ediciones Vigía.....
13 pages. 6 by 8-1/2 inches. An edition of 100 copies. Colección Clásicos (?). Five poems by the Brazilian writer, in Portuguese with a Spanish translation on the facing page. The translations are by Eugenio Gardinalli Filho and Juan Luis Hernández Milián. The design and illustrations are by Rolando Estévez.....
20 leaves printed on one side only (rectos). 8-1/4 by 10-3/4 inches. Edition size not noted. A collection of poems by writers from around Cuba, all written in praise of Hugo Chávez and Venezuela. The cover design by Freddy García Azze is a serigraph based on photographs that combines a......
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 inches. One of 100 copies. Colección del San Juan. This pergamino is one of the most unusual issued by Ediciones Vigía in the 35 years of its existence. It is affixed to a frame of thin wooden strips held together at the corners with twine.....
17 leaves, printed on one side only; irregularly numbered to 18. 6-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches. An edition of 200 copies. Colección del San Juan. A mimeographed poetry chapbook with verses selected from three unpublished manuscripts with an introduction by Mayra Hernández Menéndez. Designed by Alfredo Zaldívar with small paper collages.....
A double-sided horizontal pergamino (plegable), with a separate colophon leaf. 7 by 9-1/2 and unfolding to 49 inches. One of 100 copies. Colección del San Juan. Two poems, one on each side of the book-object. The stanzas and illustrations are mimeographed and mounted to the main Kraft paper structure. The.....
González Arestuche, Luís R.; Leonel Pérez Orozco; Pedro Y. Rodríguez Martínez; and Erick Denis Falcón
60 pages. 10 by 7-3/4 inches (oblong). One of 200 copies. Colección Venablos. An historical reference work, listing forty 19th century prints of Matanzas buildings, with thumbnail reproductions of them paired with modern-day photographs of the same locations. The cover is hand painted with collage elements, including a reproduction of.....
[6] leaves, printed on one side only (rectos). 9-1/4 by 12 inches. One of 100 copies. An English translation of the children's fable "Nené traviesa." The translation seems to be that of Elinor Randall found on the Marxists Internet Archive. The text is printed letterpress on handmade paper. The cover.....