The Rickshaw
Shanghai: Taihei Shokyoku/Taihei Book Company, 1942. David Ludwig Bloch. Hardcover. Very Good / Very Good. Item #49706
12mo. Pp. 60 + colophon, illustrated with 60 woodcuts, with images on the left and text on the facing pages. "Sometimes the Chinese caption is a nearly direct translation from Japanese; sometimes it substitutes a Chinese maxim instead of a literal translation" (WorldCat). Cream-colored paper boards with a small square illustration mounted on yellow paper on the front cover, in the original yellow paper dust jacket decorated with a repeated black woodcut image of a rickshaw, lettered in red. Paper over the front hinge cracked, but with no loss, nothing loose; the binding remains tight and square. Boards lightly age-toned but clean. Dust jacket in excellent condition. A wartime collaboration documenting the daily lives of Shanghai's rickshaw pullers through the lens of the Jewish diaspora in occupied China. The woodcuts are by German-born Jewish refugee artist David Ludwig Bloch (1910-2002), identified under his localized pseudonym "White, Green, Black" (Haku Roku Koku), with poetic text and commentary by the prominent twentieth-century Japanese poet Shinpei Kusano (1903-1988). Published at the height of World War II, shortly before the formal confinement of refugees within the Hongkew Ghetto. Scarce. Nice copy.
Price (CAD): $750.00