Dia mambí
Subtitle: Poesía
Publisher: Editorial Vigía
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Matanzas, Cuba
Language: spa
Description: Three poems, preceded by a brief excerpt from Diario de campaña, by José Martí.
In slipcase, 43 cm. (including extended construction).
One of a series of handmade books published by Vigía Ediciones.
An concertina-style folded sheet in an attached half-envelope, held in an elaborate shaped slipcase. The folded sheet is white paper with brown paper cut-outs collaged on one side containing information about the author, the publisher's name (in five separately cut-out calligraphic letters), and a colophon bearing the lamp symbolic of Ediciones Vigía, with its flame hand-colored. The main text appears on the other side of the folded sheet. At the sheet's top is glued a slightly wider piece of heavy brown paper which folds to partially contain the sheet; it bears an illustration and the name of the designer on its outside, while on the inside is glued a white slip containing the excerpt from Diario de campaña. The slipcase is made in the shape of the head and torso of a man, presumably intended to be José Martí. The opening for the sheet with the text is at the bottom of the torso. The case is illustrated with drawings of the man's front and back, with title and author's name on the front and publisher's name, series title and prize information on the back; some of the text is hand-colored. A cut-out, hand-colored bird is glued to the man's shoulder, and Ediciones Vigía's lamp symbol, with the flame hand-colored, is collaged to the back of his head. He wears a removable hand-colored paper "hat" with a red paper star collaged on one side; glued by one end to the inside of the hat is a narrow concertina-folded slip of paper commemorating the book's official presentation. A paddle-like object, constructed from a thin wood dowel and a paper quadrilateral representing the paddle's business end, is attached to the front of the "man" at his shoulder and pocket. An elaborately hand-colored picture of a fish is attached to the paddle and extends upward from it, with a small black feather glued to its dorsal fin. The copy number is written on the verso of the "paddle." Also held in the slipcase, separate from the folded sheet, is a brown paper construction of two ovals glued together at one end, representing two cameo frames back to back, one depicting a tree growing from the collar of a shirt and the other a pair of streams also rising from the collar of a shirt; this construction is folded to fit in the slipcase.
Limited edition of 200 copies.