Les deux livres

The poet Edmond Jabès has written about reading and writing in near-allegorical terms. An example is Les deux livres, a collection of contemplations and Socratic dialogues in which a sage tells us that there were two books lying on his table: that of God and his own. He then says: 'God brought mine and I brought the other'. The line about poems, white pages, virginity and the voracious appetite of paper and book that defies every religion have been typeset with plenty of white spaces by La Charité in Montpellier for publisher Fata Morgana.

This well-known publisher has released a large number of bibliophile and regular editions as well as a number of series, including some with original photographs and gouaches. For this artists' book, of which only 30 copies were published, Jean Capdeville produced original paintings with paint and chalk in black and green. Half a month after the completion of the printing work (17 March), Jabès's text was also published in a trade edition by Gallimard: Un étranger avec, sous le bras, un livre de petit format (30 March 1989).