Andreu alfaro

The 240-page book contains 64 illustrations and one original engraving. It is bound in Iris cloth with printing on the spine. Its dimensions are 16.5 x 24.5 cm. It is accompanied by a case also lined with the same fabric and with a plain one-color label. Edition numbered and signed by both authors. (The blue case in the image is not included) The writer Manuel Vicent (Vilavella, Castellón, 1936) and the sculptor Andreu Alfaro (Valencia, 1929 - 2012) have in common an indisputable role in the Spanish cultural scene. But what makes the book Contra Paraíso, published by Círculo de Lectores and Galaxia Gutenberg, truly special is the presence of a unique sensitivity, of a shared life experience, that of Vilavella during the war and post-war years. Andreu Alfaro's drawings, more than illustrating or complementing the text, seem to be part of the narrative, merging with it. In the text, Manuel Vicent speaks in an autobiographical story about the gradual revelation of the world in the eyes of a child, then a teenager, in the hard experience of the 1940s. In his drawings, Alfaro exudes intelligence and refinement when recreating, with brief but essential strokes, the poetry and beauty of childhood memories. Both in the text and in the drawings, the naivety, fantasy, discipline, fears and hopes typical of that age are described with nostalgic, delicate and suggestive language, either with words or with subtle lines on a white background. The book is accompanied by a lithograph in which the artist has reflected, with a sinuous and loose line, all the mysterious meanings of adolescent experiences.