🦜 Art of Birds Neruda 1st Ed 1985 Unruh Illus Texas Panamerican HC/DJ +Ephemera

by Pablo Neruda

$60 · Offered by eBay

First edition

Art of Birds Pablo Neruda Translated by Jack Schmitt Illustrations by Jack Unruh University of Texas Press, Austin, 1985. Stated First Edition. The Texas Panamerican Series. Hardcover in original dust jacket. 87 pages. Black-and-white illustrations throughout. Measures approximately 10.5" × 7.5". Bird by bird, Neruda once wrote, he came to know the earth—and received those wings in his soul. This is the first English appearance of his exuberant 1966 collection Arte de pájaros, a poetic bestiary of Chilean birds both real and invented. Condors, wrens, kingfishers, woodpeckers, the wandering albatross, the black-necked swan, and a mischievous gallery of “pajarantes” (imaginary species with names like the Tontivuelo and the Pájaro Yo) take flight in language that is by turns lyrical, playful, and fiercely alive. Schmitt’s translation is the product of weeks spent camping on foot and horseback in the remote southern landscapes of Neruda’s childhood so that the birds could be felt as well as named. Unruh’s bold, energetic drawings—spare yet full of personality—give each creature its own electric presence on the page. Neruda (1904–1973), Nobel laureate, diplomat, and lifelong birder, once used “ornithologist” as his false identity when fleeing political persecution across the Andes. The idea for this book itself arrived in Moscow in 1962 while he watched cosmonauts being celebrated; the human dream of flight suddenly fused with the ancient art of birds. He later said that if he cou

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 1985
• ISBN: 0292703716
• Condition: Fair

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