Crímenes ejemplares (Exemplary Crimes)

Some of the stories that compose these exemplary crimes previously appeared in Sala de Espera (Waiting Room), a publication through which Max Aub introduced his close circle and fragments of his work to interested readers. This edition uses the 87 short stories the author compiled in the form of a book and published for the first time in the Impresora Juan Pablos of Mexico City in 1957, in an edition curated by Max Aub himself and enriched with vignettes extracted from Book of Objects (San Luis Potosí, 1883).

To our knowledge, these short stories had never been featured before with such splurge of space and black ink, nor with such graphic overflow: 31 artists offer here their own versions of the crimes. This was not an easy task, since most of the stories already contained powerful images that were pointless to duplicate and difficult to subtract from. Each artist, with a few exceptions, chose the text they wished to illustrate. Many of them are regular press collaborators, while others create comic strips, children’s books, advertisements, and posters; others are painters and frequently exhibit their work in galleries.