This book,
a signed and limted edition of 100 copies, which includes
a frontispiece and four line drawings, was published and
printed by Sebastian Carter at the Rampant Lions Press,
Cambridge. It was set in Monotype Imprint by Speedspools,
Edinburgh, and printed on Zerkall mould-made paper. The
binding was by The Fine Bindery, Wellingborough.
In 1961, I interrupted my studies at art school in London
to spend a year in New York City, this year turned into
three years.
Aged 20, I shared an apartment, in New York, with my Cuban
friend Luis. Luis Augosto Pujadas y Johanet, who was a couple
of years older than me, had, with his two sisters Sylvia
and Conchita, escaped from Castro's Cuba during the revolution.
In New York he worked for the United Nations and our apartment,
in Murray Hill, was close by.
One evening at the end of March, in 1963, I joined some
friends at attend a performance of Puccini's Madame Butterfly,
upstate New York at Tarrytown. On returning to Manhattan,
in the early hours, I was surprised but not unduly concerned,
to discover that Luis was not home. However, when there
was sign of him by daybreak and no message or telephone
call, I became alarmed.
I rang various friends to no avail, and by noon had decided
with his friend Miguel Baguer, to contact the police.
Luis, we eventually discovered, lay in Bellevue Hospital.
When we reached the hospital we found him in a coma. His
injuries were so sever, that four days later, on April 2nd,
he died without ever regaining consciousness; I grew up
overnight.
Everyone at Time Inc., where I had a job as assistant to
the art director of 'Architectual Forum' magazine, was very
supportive and they allowed me time to arrange, with Miguel
and his sisters, the funeral and burial at White Pines Cemetery.
The most difficult task of all being to get through to his
parents in Havana, to break the news of his death.
Luis had been found at 10:00 p.m., lying on the payment
at the corner of Park Avenue and East 54th Street, that
fateful evening. Nothing had been stolen from him and the
police never found the culprit or discovered why he had
been murdered, a veil of uncertainty and unease enveloped
us all. |
