The Pursuer

Julio Cortázar



José Muñoz (illustrations)

«I am as lonely as this cat, and much more lonely because I know I am, and it doesn’t. Condemned, it is sticking its claws in my hand. Bruno, jazz is not just music, and I am not just Johnny Carter.»

The Pursuer is one of Julio Cortázar’s greatest literary achievements and a classic of 20th century literature. With a magisterially-handled existential background, the story describes the final days of Johnny Carter, a virtuoso saxophonist whose life takes place on the knife-edge between lucidity and self-destruction.

Since its publication in 1959, this tribute by Cortázar to the genius Charlie Parker has aroused the passion of innumerable readers, who have considered it, like Rayuela, a formative experience. The great illustrator José Muñoz has been able to interpret with extraordinary talent the depth of this fiction in which jazz, nights of insomnia and Paris in the Fifties are the framework for a story beyond compare.



Illustrated by the creator of Alack Sinner, José Muñoz, winner of the Grand Prix of the Angoulême International Comics Festival 2oo7

18 x 26.5 cm; 88 pp. Cartoné con sobrecubierta

See the author's biography
See the illustrator's biography

José Muñoz

Buenos Aires, 1942



He was a protégé of Alberto Breccia and Hugo Pratt. He worked with Francisco Solano López on the famous series El Eternauta. With Carlos Sampayo, he would go on to create Alack Sinner, one of the most famous characters in the history of detective comics. In 1983, Muñoz was awarded the Yellow Kid Prize at the Lucca Festival in Italy; in 2002 he received the Max und Moritz Medal at the Erlangen Comic Fair in Germany and in 2007 he won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Títulos publicados:
The Pursuer
Las fieras cómplices

Julio Cortázar with Zorro Rojo

«There at the end is death, but don’t be afraid. Hold the watch tight with one hand, take the stem with two fingers, and rotate it smoothly. Now another installment of time opens, trees spread their leaves, boats run races, like a fan time continues filling with itself, and from it the eruption of air, the breezes of the earth, the shadow of a woman, the sweet smell of bread.» Instructions for winding a watch.

... and the literature of Julio Cortázar

Twenty-five years after the death of the author of Rayuela, Libros del Zorro Rojo invites you to discover its illustrated editions of Julio Cortázar’s work.



The Pursuer (+ info)
Is one of Julio Cortázar’s greatest literary achievements and a classic of 20th century literature. With a magisterially-handled existential background, the story describes the final days of Johnny Carter, a virtuoso saxophonist whose life takes place on the knife-edge between lucidity and self-destruction. The great illustrator José Muñoz has been able to interpret with extraordinary talent the depth of this fiction in which jazz, nights of insomnia and Paris in the Fifties are the framework for a story beyond compare.




Meeting (+ info)
Meeting is one of the key narratives in Cortázar’s political work, recreating the period when Ernesto Guevara fought as a revolutionary soldier after disembarking at Granma on the coast of Cuba. An epic, moving tale, masterfully illustrated by Enrique Breccia, who, like Cortázar, has captured the full human dimension of Che.




The Bear’s Discourse (+ info)
For little ones, the children’s book The Bear’s Discourse, illustrated by Emilio Urberuaga, which Cortázar wrote specifically for two children in 1952. The bear in this story lives in the ventilation ducts of a building, and during the night observes the strange world of people. Taking the strange noises of the night, Cortázar was able to create a tale full of delight, capable of scaring away fear.