July 31, 2009

Annual closing 2009

Dear readers,
The bookshop will be closed from August, 01 to August, 23.
See you for the reopening.

July 23, 2009

Vicente Huidobro, creationist

Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948), poet from the Chilean aristocracy, publishes his first texts in the early 1910s. In 1916, he moves to Europe with his wife and children and lives between Paris and Madrid. He associates with Surrealists and Spanish avant-garde. Rejecting the authority of André Breton, he begins to theorize the Creationism, a movement that promotes a poetry free of any reference, completely invented : "Create a poem by borrowing from life's patterns and turning them, giving them a new independent life (...) Nothing anecdotal or descriptive (...) Make a poem as nature makes a tree ". [in Manifestes, p. 49, editions of the La Revue Mondiale, 1925].
In Madrid, he influences the birth of the Ultraïsme, Spanish literary movement that intends to exceed the aesthetic standards of the time. Huidobro publishes other books, contributed to various journals (Nord-Sud, L'Esprit Nouveau, and the Spanish issues La Revista Cervantes, Ultra, etc.).. In 1925, he returns to Chile to edit a political newspaper, Acción, denouncing the fraudulent activities of famous politicians. Some thinks he can run for the Presidency. The poet escapes a bomb attack and flees the country. He continues his poetry work and his political activities,from France and Spain and returns, after some years, in Chile.
Never hesitating to judge his peers, Huidobro is often perceived as a man with an imposing ego. While it is true that his opinions are decided, sometimes bitter, full of an aristocratic confidence, Vicente Huidobro remains a figure of the time, regarded with Pablo Neruda - another personality with Breton he never stops criticizing - as one of the most important poets of Chile.

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :
  • Manifestes Manisfeste Manifest Manifes Manife Manif Mani Man Ma M. Paris, Éditions de la Revue Mondiale, 1925, in-12. First edition.
  • Tout à coup. Poems. Paris, Au Sans Pareil, 1925, in-12. First edition with a portrait, in frontispiece, by Picasso.
  • Tremblement de ciel. With a portrait by Juan Gris. Paris, Éditions de l’As de Cœur, 1932, in-12. First French edition with a dedication to the painter Joseph Sima.

July 16, 2009

Le Yaouanc 's equilibrium of frame forms


"Not only in the present context, but in his collages for example, Le Yaouanc sometimes contrives things so that the centring of the image, the margins imposed, the placing of the thing painted or engraved or pasted, assume a predominant importance in relation to the given motif which is not allotted all the workable space of the canvas, the collage, the engraving. The painter assumes the role of framer, here, by situating the motif (the statement) in, for example, a rectangle or an oval described on what might be considered the essential element of the work, so adding to the equilibrium of the composition or drawing a sort of suspension - sometimes in the middle, sometimes not - comprising tinted margins that seem to represent a positive accumulation of frames around the still-life that is indeed far from being "still" : a better description of this effect would be the equilibrium of framed forms ."
Louis Aragon - "Pierre sur Pierre" in Le Yaouanc Lithographies - La Pierre d'Angle - 1975


Currently, the librairie loliée offers :
  • Le Yaouanc (Alain) – Aragon (Louis). Le Yaouanc Lithographies. Paris, La Pierre d’Angle, 1975, in-folio, in leaves, black publisher's folder. First edition of « Pierre sur Pierre », a text by Aragon who interprets this album composed of 63 color lithographs by Alain Le Yaouanc. One of the 150 copies on Arches paper numbered and signed by Louis Aragon and Alain Le Yaouanc, and including an original lithograph numbered and signed by the artist.
  • Derrière le Miroir. Le Yaouanc. Paris, Maeght, n°176 – 1970, in-4, in leaves, illustrated cover, publisher's case. Issue released for LE Yaouanc's exhibition at the Gallery Maeght. One of the 150 copies on Lana paper numbered and signed by the artist, including 8 original lithographs in color.

July 09, 2009

Marie-Antoinette under the fervent look of Léon Bloy

In 1877, Léon Bloy wrote La Chevalière de la Mort, (Knigthood of death) one of his first texts. This thin study is not released before 1891, in a magazine of the city of Gand and published in a limited edition of 100 copies. Bloy, in the style of Thomas Carlyle, whom he admires the sens of History, tries to look in a spiritual and visionnary way at Marie-Antoinette's figure: "Marie-Antoinette n'est ni profondément touchante, elle ne s'empare des âmes avec une si souveraine puissance d'émotion que parce qu'elle n'est pas une sainte." His tone is often provocative and humorous : "Quand à cette pauvre Marie-Antoinette, elle vint en France comme ce délicieux arc-en-ciel du matin qui présage dit-on, le mauvais temps". He describes Louis XVI as a "Rien des Lys" and goes on : "Marie-Antoinette couchée pendant vingt ans en travers du cœur de Louis XVI, comme le Prophète sur le cadavre de l'enfant mort pour le ressusciter, n'en put jamais obtenir cette palpitation de généreuse fureur qui aurait peut-être suffi pour dégonfler la vessie du bavardage révolutionnaire et, dans tous les cas, aurait honoré, du moins, sa pauvre mémoire."
Léon Bloy, making of the poor convicted Queen an heroic icon, comes to a lyric conclusion : "Elle naquit le jour des larmes, elle vécut une partie de sa vie dans les larmes dévorées, ses derniers jours dans les larmes répandues en pluie, en torrents et, enfin, sa mort, sujet de tant d'autres larmes, fut le Dies iroe, de l'ensevelissement d'une génération, d'une aristocratie, d'un trône et d'un monde".
(Picture : preparatory drawing for the official portrait of Marie Antoinette; painted in 1778 by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun).

Currently, the librairie Loliée offers :
  • Bloy (Léon). La Chevalière de la mort. Gand, Typographie Siffer, 1891, in-12, original covers and back, full blue Levant binding, older and case (Huser). First edition limited to 100 copies. Ex-libris Marcel de Merre.

July 02, 2009

Magloire-Saint-Aude, the lonely rebel

In the forties and fifties, the Haitian poet Clément Magloire Saint-Aude (1912-1971) was a singular figure, that of a rebellious and solitary writer. He devoted his life to journalism and lived in a poor neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, whose nightlife inspired him. In 1941, he published in quick succession two collections, Dialogue de mes lampes (Dialogue of my lamps) and Tabou (Taboo). His writing, abstruse and opaque, caused the admiration of the Surrealists, including André Breton who met him in December 1945. The Haitian writer, despite his new celebrity, refused to commit himself publicly and pursued his solitary adventure. In 1949, he wrote a novel, Parias in which he outlined the circles he saw. In 1956 is published Déchu (Fallen), his latest collection of poetry. He gradually lapsed into alcohol. François Duvalier, President of the Haitien Republic, granted him in 1967 a monthly allowance to keep him up. Magloire-Saint-Aude then hardly wrote except a few articles often virulent. He died in 1971 leaving, as the only trace of his secret life, a work of great and dazzling poetry.


Aux exploits du poète las,
Mon vitrail disloqué
Aux rails de la mélodie.

Pour ma belle fille naufragée,
Tel l'harmonica du voyou.

Vers l'araignée fêlée
des stances moissonnées.

Sur le buvard aveugle
De mes talents éteints.

quote from the collection Déchu.

Currently, the librairie loliée offers :
  • Magloire-Saint-Aude. Dialogue de mes lampes suivi de Tabou et de Déchu. Illustrations de Wifredo Lam, Hervé Télémaque, Jorge Camacho. Paris, chez Jacques Veuillet, collection « Première personne », 1970, in-8. First collective edition illustrated with 3 figures from the etchings of Jorge Camacho, Wifredo Lam and Hervé Télémaque.