Légèreté No 1 1985 [ Daphne, Alabama ]
$100
In stock
Description
First Issue of Rare Alabama Activist Publication Légèreté With News Coverage and Essays from Northern Ireland
Coale, Kimberly, ed. Légèreté No 1. Légèreté Press. Daphne, Alabama. 1985.
The first issue of the journal of the Légèreté International Writers’ Union, which ran for 13 issues until 1986. The union, journal, and press all take their title from Milan Kundera’s novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, originally published in French as L’insoutenable légèreté de l’être in 1984. Focused on the role of artists and writers around the world and in areas of conflict, the text’s simplicity was designed for distribution by mail to allow for its underground proliferation as a samizdat in Europe.
This issue includes news coverage of the execution of Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, the Islamic religious leader declared a heretic by the government of Sudan, the arrests of the writer Felix Svetov and the economist Vladas Lapienis in the USSR, an appeal on behalf of the imprisoned politician Balys Gajauskas, and an open letter to Pinochet on Chile’s State of Siege. Additionally, the contents also feature the poem A Sentence About Tyranny by Hungarian writer Gyula Illyes, as well as a collection of essays from Northern Ireland, including several reprinted from Images Arts and People In Northern Ireland (five copies in OCLC as of March 2024), from notable Northern Irish musicians James Galway and Tommy Maken, adventure novelist Jack Higgins, and playwright Brian Friel.
Some issues held at 12 institutions per OCLC as of March 2024.
117pp + [1] ad. Staple bound in printed newsprint wraps. Reading creases. Wraps and pages toned. Minor creasing front wrap. Small tear to back wrap bottom edge. Some illustrations. Very good.
If you liked this item, you might also enjoy this first issue of the Houston, Texas based underground Space City News, or this copy of Madison, Wisconsin underground Take Over, with letters, clippings, and special coverage of imprisoned anti-war bomber Karl Armstrong.
