Max Aub

MAX AUB (Paris, 1903-Mexico City, 1972)
"Cuentos ciertos", 1st Edition, 1955.
Publisher: Antigua Liberia Robredo, Mexico.
Contains a self-portrait plate drawn by Aub.
Paperback binding. It shows wear on the cover.
Measurements: 17 x 11 cm.
Published in 1955 by Antigua Librería Robredo of Mexico, Cuentos ciertos is one of the most representative narrative collections of Max Aub, a fundamental writer of Spanish literature in exile. A novelist, playwright, essayist and short-story writer of extraordinary versatility, Aub developed a large part of his intellectual career in Mexico, the country that welcomed him after the Spanish Civil War and where he produced a body of work of enormous thematic and formal richness.
In Cuentos Ciertos, the author brings together a series of stories that sharply explore the complexities of the human condition, combining psychological observation, irony and a profound critical sense. As in much of his short fiction, Aub deliberately blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, inviting the reader to question the nature of truth, memory and experience. The stories are constructed with a remarkable expressive economy and a great capacity for evocation, traits that distinguish the author as one of the great masters of the short story in the Spanish language.
The work reflects constant concerns in Aubiana's production: exile, identity, war, injustice and the moral dilemmas of the individual in the face of history. Without resorting to great narrative artifice, the writer manages to capture situations full of humanity and intellectual depth, offering a lucid and often moving look at the contemporary world.
The copy reviewed corresponds to the first edition published in Mexico in 1955 by Antigua Librería Robredo. It has the added value of including a plate with a self-portrait drawn by Max Aub himself, an element of special interest for collectors and scholars, as it allows them to appreciate a lesser-known artistic facet of the writer. This feature makes the volume a particularly representative testimony of the author's creative and multifaceted personality.
It retains its paperback binding and shows wear and tear on the cover in accordance with its age and use, which are common circumstances in copies of this period. In spite of this, it maintains intact its bibliographic and documentary interest as a first edition of one of Max Aub's most appreciated narrative works.
Due to the relevance of its author, the literary quality of the stories and the presence of the original self-portrait, Cuentos ciertos is an outstanding piece within the Aubian bibliography and a work especially valued by collectors of Spanish exile literature and of the first Spanish-American editions of the 20th century.