Dalmau, John

Slave Worker in the Channel Islands

San Francisco, CA: Deliriodendron Press, 1996. First Edition Thus. String-bound Chapbook in Wrappers. “In September 1996, while on a reading tour in Britain, I went […] to the city of York to visit the many second-hand bookshops there. […] Among shelves of old tour guides, poetry chapbooks, theatre programs and other books all mish-mashed together in a York bookshop, I found Slave Worker. The striking, almost comic book cover first caught my eye, but it was John Dalmau’s story within its pages that made me determined to see this brilliant pamphlet appear in the United States. Few Americans know that the. Channel Islands of Britain were occupied by the German army for the duration of World War II. Dalmau, a Spaniard who was imprisoned there by the Nazis, gives a moving, horrific account of days and nights under the yoke of that most bestial order, and of the brave acts of resistance by both the prisoners and the inhabitants on the islands. In these days, when American and British prisons are swelling with poor people driven to desperate acts by a criminal economic system of plunder and oppressive exploitation, and when more and more naziocratic [sic] controls and brutalities are being overtly or covertly installed, John Dalmau's testimony should remind us that resistance to tyranny is at the core of what it means to exist, that is, to be free” (Jack Hirschman, from Introduction).” Offered here is a unique piece of resistance literature published by Jack Hirschman’s Deliriodendron Press in 1996: the republication of John Dalmau’s “Slave Worker in the Channel Islands,” the harrowing account of a Spanish volunteer in the French Resistance who was enslaved by the Nazis in the occupied Channel Islands during World War II. This item, like many others affiliated with Hirschman, is a testament to the latter’s legacy of resistance, both literary and political. Small-format string-bound chapbook in wrappers: First Edition Thus, First Printing, though not indicated as such on copyright page. From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe, the legendary American poet and co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book, Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (Item No. 3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (Item No. 1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. In very fine condition with only minute shelf-wear, light bumping to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge, otherwise pristine. Very Fine. [Item #7292]

Price: $30.00