FIRST EDITION OF IZAS, RABIZAS Y COLIPOTERRAS, THE CONTROVERSIAL WORK BY NOBEL LAUREATE JOSÉ CAMILO CELA, WITH 28 STRIKING PHOTOGRAVURES BY JUAN COLOM

CELA, Camilo José. Izas, Rabizas y Colipoterras. Rocafort and Barcelona: Editorial Lumen, 1964. Quarto, original photographic laminated boards, later brown printed dust jacket. $1700.

First edition, with later limited edition dust jacket, number 123 of only 200 dust jackets printed following Cela’s 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature, featuring 28 black-and-white photogravures of Barcelona prostitutes by Juan Colom.

“From 1958 to 1961, Joan Colom surreptitiously photographed the lively social sphere of Barcelona’s red light district, known as the Ravel. Colom exhibited this series to great acclaim at a gallery in Barcelona as well as throughout Spain. Then in 1964 he made the fateful decision to publish it in book form, collaborating with the novelist Camilo José Cela. Izas, Rabizas y Colipoterras flaunted a theatrical, black humor infused with Goya-esque wisdom about matters of the flesh. Its charged images were accompanied by a provacative, idiomatic text written in Catalonian dialect. The dictatorial Franco regime took such offense at the book that Colom stopped photographing, possibly in fear for his life… Taking the profane as a route to the sublime, the shifting positions that Colom navigated as a photographer, voyeur, and participant were echoed in Cela’s text. With fine sardonic humor, Cela muses about life in the Raval, making rich use of various literary genres and voices…Colom’s intense involvement in the drama of the Raval and his affection for its people give his work a special piquancy… Colom, his work, and his daring book remain a fascinating testament to the lasting power of Catalan’s cultural independence” (Deborah Garwood). Parr & Badger I:220.

An exceptionally fine copy, in scarce limited edition dust jacket.