The 26th edition of the Salon du livre ancien au moderne, this weekend at the Espace Valentré, was a success. It was inaugurated in the company of Françoise Faubert (1st deputy mayor of Cahors), Nelly Ginestet (departmental councilor), Marie-Noëlle Andissac (director of the Grand Cahors media library), Christophe Tillie (municipal councilor of Cahors) and Aurélien Pradié (deputy).
Among the books presented at the fair: let us note a remarkable collage of texts, “Le flâneur des deux rives”, which was one of Apollinaire’s last works and takes us on a journey through Paris alongside the poet. This original edition has a remarkable full white calf binding, an artistic creation by Annick Butré (2009) offered by the L’Encrivore bookstore.
We could also admire a superb work in the theme of the 26th edition: “Les illuminations” by Arthur Rimbaud, illustrated by the great Max Walter Svanberg. A surrealist beauty from 1958 unveiled by the M. de B bookstore.
“Beware, son, of Mephistopheles”, the wise advice of the day from the bookseller at Déjà Jadis, who is offering this copy of “L’Automate Méphistophélique”, a work by Jean-Louis Clément, to whom we owe poems and engravings. Limited edition of 20 copies for this curiosity with a strong character.
For the bold ones who are not afraid of seeing their souls corrupted, it was possible to look at this copy of “La Papesse du diable”, written by Jehan Silvius and Pierre de Ruynes (Gengenback and Robert Desnos). A firework of surrealism and eroticism, long sold under the counter, but which could now be obtained at the bookstore La Petite Faiseuse de livres.
The conference by the writer and philosopher Georges Sebbag, who participated with Breton in the surrealist movement, brought together around fifty people. This great specialist in surrealism (we owe him more than twenty reference works on the subject) had chosen Cahors to revisit the Manifesto in an unexpected way, surprising the audience composed partly of connoisseurs. Rather than evoking the consequences of the publication on October 15, 1924 of the first Manifesto of surrealism, Georges Sebbag held his audience captive by speaking only of the content of the manifesto, revealing the keys and secret doors used by Breton. A new and revealing light that lifts many enigmas: Breton used adages and proverbs that he transfigured, played with hidden allusions (like the color white), the surrealist lists of the Manifesto are in reality linked to the context of 1924, the literary collages of his previous essays are reworked to appear in the Manifesto, Breton also used distraction as a power of doubling, etc.
