Sergio Larrain

Chilean photographer Sergio Larrain (1931–2012) released only a handful of books in his lifetime, and this English-language edition gathers the one he valued most. It turns to Valparaíso, the port city he photographed across his career. After years working around the world as a Magnum photographer, he came back to Chile in the early 1960s, and the city became his central subject. He described it as shabby yet romantic, wedged between the Andes and the Pacific, slowly fading as its commercial importance declined while still holding traces of beauty and enchantment.

The volume is built on a 1993 layout by Larrain, made in response to the 1991 French edition. Pablo Neruda, the Nobel-winning poet, wrote a text for it specifically for Larrain, and Agnès Sire contributes an essay. The photographs span 1952 to 1992, including many never published before. The original thirty-six images have grown to 120, and handwritten notes and texts by Larrain himself appear alongside them.