Julio Cortázar

Julio Silva decided to settle in Silvalandia and portray it, so that Julio Cortázar could put it into words. The result, more than a book, is an entire civilisation, where elephants live with all the rights of citizenship in order and fish whose masters would never think of leaving them in a fish tank when they go for a walk. Just like posters painted by a sphinx and interpreted by a Platense Oedipus who saw grass growing where grass could never grow. All of which boils down to Silvalandia's greatest danger: the reader can become a child at every turn of the page. And stay forever in that land, holding on to Julio with the left hand and holding on to Julio with the right hand. How could you not take such an affectionate risk?

The writer Julio Cortázar and the artist Julio Silva were fast friends, from the time, as Cortazar remembers, his younger compatriot "came to Paris from Buenos Aires in fifty-five and a few months later visited me and spent a night talking about French poetry." The two would collaborate frequently, most famously with Silva providing the iconic original cover of Rayuela (Hopscotch), and most directly in Silvalandia.