Читать книгу MAMista - Len Deighton - Страница 5

Prompted by seeing the renderings of my two murals for Cunard’s new ship, Queen Elizabeth, Len Deighton suggested that I illustrate some of the covers of this next quartet of re-issues. I am delighted to be given the opportunity to draw once again, as it has been well over thirty years since my days as a regular illustrator for the Sunday Times.

MAMista is in many ways a remarkable work and it contains some complex and conflicted characters, who are all profoundly affected by the events in the story. I chose the idealistic young Marxist, Angel Paz, as an exemplar of this. By depicting this young man’s visage prematurely aged and hollowed out by experience, giving him that thousand-yard stare seen so often in photos by the likes of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey or Tim Page, I could best capture the heart of the book. It also allowed me to put him in the battered uniform of a MAMista rebel. Angel stands in front of the South American jungle, an actual and metaphorical character in the book representing entropy and decay, and here it pushes against the flimsy walls of the revolutionaries’ camp.

A trip to an army surplus store on Hollywood Boulevard provided me with the camouflage cap and an AK40 rifle pin for the back cover. I usually photograph the objects that decorate the back covers on our kitchen table, as the window’s translucent white curtains provide a very nice soft light, contrasting California’s hard shadows so much favoured by artist David Hockney.

For the book’s spine I purchased a pair of custom-made dog tags stamped with the name of another of the book’s characters, Ramon, a service number and ‘C’ for his religion. (Given Ramon is revolutionary leader of the MAMista, it might also stand for ‘comrade’.) Observant readers will notice that each of the spines in this latest quartet of reissues features a metallic object; a subtle visual link that draws together four books written and set in very different times and places.

I have taken the photograph for this book’s back cover with my Canon 5D camera, and my illustration was drawn with a HB Staedtler pencil.

Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI

Hollywood 2011