Paul Auster – Bericht vanuit het Innerlijk

Book coverPaul Auster – Bericht vanuit het Innerlijk
Book coverPaul Auster – Bericht vanuit het Innerlijk
Book coverPaul Auster – Bericht vanuit het Innerlijk
Book coverPaul Auster – Bericht vanuit het Innerlijk

Look at the way on the dust jacket the title touches the silhouette at just that one telling point. And how the shadow cast by the letters of the title returns in the space for the bar code. And how the image on the dust jacket is repeated on the cover protected by it. An author whose work is published like this – and in translation, too – can congratulate himself.

 

In Bericht vanuit het Innerlijk Paul Auster writes about the things that mattered to him in his youth. Turning to the pages of text themselves, there is nothing exciting in terms of their presentation – but that’s the point: this is pure typography, and the essence of pure typography is that it moves in the background and remains inconspicuous.

The text pages are printed on relatively smooth paper. In due course the reason for this becomes apparent: the book ends with an Album of images which bring Auster’s story home to us in a different way. Because they are on the same paper they are not isolated into a photographic section: they become the fourth story in the book, a story in a different form.


One member of the panel felt that on some pages the space between the main text and the footnotes was too narrow. And there you go: put the notes at the bottom of the page in the old-fashioned way for a change, and it’s still not right!

Edition: 2013
Language: Dutch, translated by Ronald Vlek
Publisher: De Arbeiderspers, Utrecht/Amsterdam/Antwerpen
Graphic designer: Studio Ron van Roon (Bart Rouwhorst, jacket and binding), Nico Richter (typography), Steven van der Gaauw (picture sections)
Printer: Wilco, Amersfoort
Binder: Wilco, Amersfoort
Size book block (w x h x d in mm): 148 x 222 x 28
Number of pages: 304 p.
Print run: 6,000
Price: € 21.95
ISBN: 978 90 295 8779 2
Font and foundry: Adobe Janson
Binding style: unsewn hardback
Material: 90gsm Munken Premium Cream 19.5 (interior), 140gsm Maxi Offset (endpapers), Efalin, new linen, vivid red (binding), 130gsm tom&otto Silk (dust jacket, printed in five colours)