PRÉVERT (Jacques). - Lot 184

PRÉVERT (Jacques). Rain and Fine Weather. Paris: NRF, Le Point du jour, [1955]. — In-8, 193 x 145: 254 pp., (1 f.), printed cover. Paperback, padded cover. First edition of this eclectic collection by Jacques Prévert, alternating between free-verse poems, short theatrical sketches, fables, and personal reflections. Africa and colonization are not omnipresent in this work, but they appear in several pieces, including one titled *Étranges étrangers* (Strange Strangers), a manifesto-poem—both lyrical and political—written as a tribute to immigrants, the marginalized, and the oppressed in French society. In it, Prévert evokes colonial workers (“Kabyles of La Chapelle and the Quays of Javel,” “Tunisians of Grenelle,” “Black slaves of Fréjus”)—men who came from the colonies, often exploited as cheap labor or crammed into squalid conditions—as well as stateless persons and refugees (“Stateless people of Aubervilliers,” “Bourians of the Porte de Saint-Ouen,” “Polacks of the Marais”), children and young people (“Children of Senegal,” “Indochinese children”)—figures who felt out of place, exploited, and then forcibly sent back to their countries. A Black character appears in the poem “Rue Stevenson,” while Africa is evoked at the end of the poem “Le Grand fraisier” with this line: “Without a doubt, in Africa, the happy era of the great macadamized oases had barely begun.” One of the first 37 numbered copies on Madagascar paper (No. 19). The copy is in very good condition despite a few scattered foxing spots.