Poesía y otros textos — San Juan de la Cruz, illustrated by Antonio Saura, 1991

This austere clothbound edition of Poesía y otros textos by San Juan de la Cruz pairs one of Spain’s most transcendent mystics with one of its most visceral visual artists. Published by Círculo de Lectores in 1991, it places the ecstatic interiority of 16th-century Carmelite verse in tension with the angular, existential line work of Antonio Saura. His stark illustrations—one of which appears ghostlike on the cover—render spiritual longing not as luminous vision, but as confinement, fracture, and shadow.

Rather than romanticise the mystical, Saura reveals its violence: the cell becomes a stage for unseeable struggle, the divine encounter charged with pain. This is a book about interior life, but not the calm kind. The dialogue between word and image makes the sacred texts feel bodily, urgent, and strange again.

Technical Sheet
Title: Poesía y otros textos
Author: San Juan de la Cruz
Illustrator: Antonio Saura
Date: 1991
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Clothbound hardcover
Dimensions (cm): approx. 14 × 21
Language: Spanish
Publisher / Editor: Círculo de Lectores
ISBN: 84-226-3764-2
Condition: Very Good