[Agnès Varda] Europe Revue Mensuelle. Littérature de Cuba – Mai-Juin 1963

Paris: Europe et les Editeurs Francais Réunis, 1963. 12mo large (21,5×13,5cm), printed card wrappers. 320pp. Text in French. Front cover with moderate creasing and mild soiling to rear cover. Occasional mild foxing to edges, mainly to endpapers and title page. Very good.

Since its founding in 1923, Europe has been a journal that operated in the literary and intellectual landscape. Created by Romain Rolland and several members of the Abbey group [Le Groupe de l’Abbaye], a utopian artistic and literary community that was founded in 1906.

Europe immediately opened up to collaborations from writers from all over the world and was one of the intellectual centers, which provided the best reception to the German exiles, whom Goebbels claimed were “Kadaver auf Urlaub” [cadaver on vacation]. Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Alfred Kantorowicz, Joseph Roth, Anna Seghers, Walter Benjamin, and Bertolt Brecht published in the journal.

With the announcement of the German-Soviet pact Europe was suspended in 1939. Solely through Louis Aragon it was published again by La Bibliothèque Française, which was taken over by Éditeurs français réunis in 1949.

This special issue Littérature de Cuba is dedicated to Cuban literature with texts by Juan Goytisolo, Che Guevara, Alejo Carpentier, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Abelardo Piñeiro and others, which are accompanied by photographs by Agnès Varda and Photo PIC.

One year after Chris Marker made his film Cuba Si, Agnès Varda was invited by the Cubans for the celebrations of New Year’s Eve 1961/62 (four years after the Revolution). She filmed and photographed Cuban life with a Rolleiflex and Leica, resulting in her film Salut les Cubains from 1963.