The flame, companion to so many books (illustration taken from La Lumière et Les Couleurs (1874) by Amédée Guillemin).

“If only he had thrown into the avenging fire his remaining works, which would cover with darkness the light of the most clear truth, the products of a wandering fantasy, the horrible specters of a devilish gateway, which should have been relegated to the hell they came from, had they been burned, would not drag the soul of any reader into flames that can not be erased!” (Preface to the De Tribus Impostoribus, by Sebastian Kortholt).

     There are countless books in the world, all of them easily classified according to the innumerable human demands. There are books full of practical or philosophical knowledge, books for entertainment, books for cultural and spiritual elevation. And there are the damn books, the books that feed the flames, the books silenced and lost in the filthy corridors of History. Some are real, others are imaginary. One of them is called Spiritual Meaning of the Massacres. And the first Raphus Press collection, with some of the most creative authors of contemporary weird fiction, will be about it.
      Behold, Hermitage or Life and Philosophy became Spiritual Meaning of the Massacres. The last book in the series The Ashes of the Cities grew, discovered its self-consciousness and autonomy, acquired a strange, alien, life of its own. It changed its form: it became a collection of unpublished texts by many authors, fictionists devoted to the fantastic, all of them working around a common axis, the strange adventures around a book, unclassifiable, perhaps cursed. May new and powerful rituals emerge from this living configuration that will come – only superficially resembling a book – and which will reproduce so many characteristics of conscious life. 
       ​More information, and the table of contents, coming soon.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for the support provided to our editorial adventure in 2016. We know that the misfortunes, contretemps and problems have been many, but we hope that the next year will be different. In 2017, we will have another structure: the books will be edited in a more professional, international structure with a broader team. The printing and binding will be accomplished by Buchmanufaktur in Winterhur, Switzerland. The series The Golden Age of Clairvoyance will be printed by this new player, which will guarantee a much better final product.

​Taking advantage of this moment, I announce the new Raphus Press series: The Ashes of the Cities. The focus of this new series, as its name implies, will be the city – the multiple configurations, life forms, and projections of the great metropolis, as well as the simple death and agony of any city. The series will be composed, as usual, by three chapbooks that will bring both my own original material and translations. The volumes shall be as follows:

First book: The City that Defeated the Sea, English translation of the short story "La ciudad que había vencido el mar" by Spanish decadent writer Antonio Hoyos y Vinent. Vinent was a strange decadent writer: homosexual, fascinated by the young Spanish workers, anticipated Pasolini in this particular taste and also in his adhesion to the socialist/anarchist militancy. In the middle of Spanish Civil War, he was incarcerated, dying in prison like some of his fictional characters. His meticulous narrative of destruction will be preceded by the unpublished tale "Unburied Animals," of my own.

Second Book: The Misery Encampments, translation of journalistic narrative "Os livres acampamentos da miséria" originally written in Portuguese by João do Rio, one of the first descriptions of Rio de Janeiro’s slums. Dandy and Flaneur, João do Rio was one of the first Brazilian authors to perceive the maddening multiplicity of the metropolis. This translation will be accompanied by my story "Disturbing Visions and Homilies".

Third book: Hermitage or Life and Philosophy, a longer narrative of my own, will be in the third chapbook of the series. A brief and eventually cruel glimpse on the phylosophy of chaos and language and fire.

The three books – either as seperate or closed series, in print, digital or both formats – are already available for pre-order on the Raphus Press website at the links above. The first of them must be sent in digital format before December 30, 2016. The print versions are expected to come out between March and April 2017. As usual, the subscription of all series wold be available as well.

Thank you all with the sincere wish of Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

Below, the printed version cover of The City that Defeated the Sea.

The Raphus Press proudly presents here to our loyal readers the new series of books that will be published and released between December 2016 and March 2017. This series even has its own title, The Golden Age of Clairvoyance and its focus is the translation and the unique presentation of works and/or authors little known but with a ferocious and remarkable vision in their own terms. Opening the series, Monsters, a visual essay by Alfred Jarry - an author who needs no introduction and has been reimagined in all its splendor by DP Watt in his experiment, Conflagration - published in L'Ymagier issue 2 in 1895.

Next, the rare short story Black Mirror written by the Argentine Leopoldo Lugones – one of the professed Jorge Luis Borges masters - an infernal and existentialist "science fiction". Finally, The Origins - Excerpt from The Cemetery for the Living, a creation by Lima Barreto, tormented Brazilian author, a true demiurge of Latin American literature in the early twentieth century. 

All editions will have introductory texts written by Alcebiades Diniz Miguel. This material oscillates between the well stablished imaginary exegesis and  the real or speculative biographies, inspired by some inventions by Borges or Cioran.

Preorders starts today. All editions will be more or less 18 pages, as usual. Below, you can view the arts of the cover and the title page of each edition (besides the first page of Monsters, as a bonus). In our shop, are now available prices, terms and promotions to subscribers (from printed and virtual editions).

Monsters, with the preamble "The Impossible Man in the Cockloft".

Black Mirror, with the imaginary profile "The Sources of Theophany".

The Origins - Excerpt from Living Cemetery, with the unusual essay "The Hermitage".

The Raphus Press proudly presents its Signature Program. This program will work as follows: the book editions at Raphus Press has a serialized logical. So, the fist three editions form the first series, the first path: "Essays & Visions". The final volume of our first series, The Reliquary to the House of the Void, with an essay ("Fathomless Perspective", on the short novel The Aesthete hagiographer by Derek John) and two imaginary exegesis ("The Soulless Thing at Ipiranga Avenue", a narrative reaction from golem of bucharest by Andrew Condous and "The Blind Cinephile", from Damian Murphy's The Exaltation of the Minotaur) will have a exquisite printed form, with two covers, two inverse principles in one single handcrafted object. The three covers (one for the electronic format, ​two for the printed version respectively) follows below:

The Reliquary to the House of the Void will be released in early August, 2016, and can be purchased in pre-sale on this link (in the new catalog section of our website).

But we need to discuss our subscription proposal. It's very simple: all of our Paths (always with three books) may be purchased for US $ 62.00, remembering that individual issues are priced at $ 27.00. The subscriptions can be acquired at this link.
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The second path will be focused on translations; in addition to the Origins by Lima Barreto, there will be two more – some texts by Alfred Jarry to the magazines L'Ymagier (the cover of the first issue of L'Ymagier follows below) and Perhinderion in one edition and two stories by the argentine (a master for Jorge Luis Borges) Leopoldo Lugones in the another and perhaps the last one in this path. Stay tuned for news about the new Raphus Press paths.

A visual adaptation (for a future version in graphic novel format) to my brief story, 'The Extinction Hymnbook', greeted by the remarkable Des Lewis as a mighty visionary work, believe me, the apotheosis of ‘The King in Yellow’ and Byron’s ‘Darkness’ poem. An script with some visual references and new perspectivas in a unique format. This edition will be released at the first days of July, 2016.

Five fictional, visual, and narrative responses to five books (The Hill of Cinders, O Altitudo, Secret Europe, Aornos, and Virtue in Danger) in a new path from the analytical reviews at Bibliophage. This is a synthetical (re)vision inspired by extraordinary books, a unique way to concentrate some visions awaken when I'm reading this stories.