Die Jünge Parze

First edition of the german translation by Paul Celan, printed on vergé.
Autograph inscription, signed and dated, by Paul Celan to the surrealiust painter Edgar Jené and his wife : "Für Erica und Edgar Jené herzlich, Paul Celan. Paris, am 30. Oktober 1960".
Slight foxings, not serious, on one cover of the slipcase.
A good copy.

This autograph inscription, sent in 1960, seals 13 years of friendship between Paul Celan and the painter Edgar Jené. In a letter dated February 1948 addressed to the writer Alfred Margul-Sperber, the poet enthusiastically described the talent of his friend, whom he had met in Vienna a year earlier: 

« Here he is, so to speak, the “pope” of surrealism, and now I am his most influential (and only) cardinal. »

According to Sieghild Bogumil, the intellectual complicity between the two men was such that Celan even had the privilege of choosing the titles of some of Jené's works on several occasions. It was also in 1948 that the painter asked the poet to write an introduction to some of his surrealist works at an exhibition. Edgar Jené und der Traum vom Traume was born out of this collaboration and is now considered as Paul Celan's first attempt to theorise poetic art (James K. Lyon).

 

Our first edition of Die Jünge Parze, with its unique autograph inscription, is a precious testimony to the bond that existed between these two major artistic figures of the 20th century.