Camo, Pierre, editor, and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Esther Razanadrasoa, et al., contributors.

[MALAGASY LITERATURE – WITH PUBLICATIONS BY AFRICA'S FIRST MODERN POET] Latitude Sud 18°: cahier mensuel de littérature et d’art des pays de langue française de l’Océan Indien [Latitude South 18°: a monthly journal of literature and art from French-speaking countries in the Indian Ocean], nos. 1–12 (complete first series). WITH: Autographed letter signed by Pierre Camo to Pierre Champion (dated March 5, 1924).

Tananarive (Antananarivo), Madagascar: Imprimerie B. Fourgs, November 1923 through December 1924. Octavos (20.1 × 15.4 cm to 21.3 × 15.7 cm). Original staple-stitched pictorial wrappers; 20 pp. per issue (the final double issue 34 pp). Each issue typically illustrated with between one and three (one issue with eight illustrations, including full-page) woodcut vignettes and small illustrations by Léone Georges and Émile Perrin. The first issue with eight plates. One issue with three pages of musical notation. First issue with small repair to upper spine; occasional toning to wrappers; overall very good or better. WITH: ALS by Pierre Camo to anonymous recipient. Single leaf of laid paper, folded once, measuring 18 × 27.3 cm, with three pages of manuscript text in ink. Minor toning; overall very good. Item #55763

A complete run of twelve issues (in eleven fascicles) of this Malagasy arts and literature journal founded by Pierre Camo and edited by him along with Victor Grandjean, Ivan Manhès, and Auguste Trévis. "Latitude Sud" features poems, stories, and short essays on life and art in colonial Madagascar, with numerous illustrations and woodcuts by Léone Georges and Émile Perrin. Six of the eleven volumes include contributions by the young Malagasy poet Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo (1901–1937), widely considered to be the first modern poet in Africa and named the national poet of independent Madagascar in 1960. Other contributors included André Chazel, Trévis, Manhès, Jean Lebrau, Léon Vérane, André Gaillard, Philippe Chabaneix and others. The first issue features a striking unattributed two-color woodcut design and is devoted in part to an exhibition of modern painting at the Antanarivo Fair; it contains reproductions of works by Perrin, Yves Alix, Charles Camoin, Picard le Doux, Raoul Dufy, and Maurice de Vlaminck.

Born Joseph-Casimir, Rabearivelo descended from impoverished Imerina nobility and grew up among the first Malagasy generation under French colonial rule. Although sent to prestigious schools, he was soon expelled and took up unskilled labor in various trades, while developing a strong interest in both traditional Malagasy oral poetry (known as "hainteny") and classical French literature. Although prevented by the colonial authorities from traveling to France throughout his lifetime, Rabearivelo corresponded with major writers of his time, including André Gide, Paul Valéry, and Paul Claudel. The travel ban also made it impossible for him to establish himself as a professional writer with a larger readership than the largely illiterate local populace and a small circle of French colonial bureaucrats on the island. In 1924, Rabearivelo took a job as proofreader at the Imprimerie d'Imerina, which he would hold until his death. He nevertheless devoted large sums of money to importing books and created the largest personal library on the island. In the early 1920s, Rabearivelo befriended Camo, the editor of "Latitude Sud” and postal magistrate on the island, who was himself a minor poet and who exposed Rabearivelo to symbolist poetry. His writing would eventually evolve toward a surrealist-inflected vers libre, as Rabearivelo continued to grapple with the uneasy dual influence of French literature and the Malagasy oral tradition. In the end, "he synthesized Europe's prevailing urban surrealism with his own comparatively bucolic surroundings. In Rabearivelo, we are offered the best aspects of two poetic traditions: the wildly innovative imagery of modern surrealism, permeated with the essence of traditional oral poetry: clear communication" (Robert Ziller, introduction to "Translated from the Night", Pittsburgh 2007).

In addition to his extensive literary output, Rabearivelo also translated the works of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Rilke, and Whitman into Malagasy. Much of his own poetics, too, revolved around translation and what he called "transcription", which often involved writing two versions of each text, in Malagasy and French. One scholar has asserted that he used the term "translated" to describe the complicated relationship between Hova and French, with neither language being used exclusively: "as if Rabearivelo was no longer writing directly in French or Malagasy, but in the perpetual passageway from one language to another" (Joubert, cited in Alain Ricard, The Languages and Literatures of Africa, p. 125). The present issues contain: translations of Malagasy texts into French by Rabearivelo, as well as his translation of a work by his lover, the poet Esther Razanadrasoa; a series of “old Malagasy poems” translated by him; as well as poems ostensibly written in French. Other contents of note include an additional text by Razanadrasoa, as well as by other Malagasy poets including S. Ratany, Lys Ber, J. Rainizanabololona, Ny Avana, Ramanantoanina, S. Rawelas, J. Razafintsalama and others.

After a series of personal setbacks, including the death of his daughter and of his lover, fellow Malagasy poet Esther Razanadrasoa (1892–1931), Rabearivelo committed suicide on June 22, 1937. Ziller notes that he "died just prior to the flowering of the Négritude movement in Paris, having never met Césaire, Senghor, and other African luminaries. Nevertheless, at the time of his death, Rabearivelo was recognized as Africa's first modern poet" (Ziller, p. x).

The enclosed letter by Pierre Camo (according to an earlier dealer description, the letter is addressed to Pierre Champion, though his name does not appear on the document) is dated March 5, 1924 and discusses the recipient's desire to collect all published issues, with the first issue being noted as "sold out.” Camo describes the journal as a small project meant to entertain himself and his friends, and already notes that its publication would be interrupted by his imminent departure to France in late 1924. A second series of the journal ("Nouvelle série") would appear in ten issues from 1926 through November 1927, after Camo's return to Madagascar.

Ilk, Global Avantgarde Typography 1915–1950, p. 269 (Madagascar 1).

Rare. As of June 2026, KVK, OCLC show holdings of both series at Paris and Eichstätt. In North America, we can trace only one holding of the complete first series (and a single issue at another institution).

Price: €12,500.00

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