History

The Ampersand editorial project was born in 2012, with the intention of putting books about books on the page in a careful and elegant format, after exhaustive editing, proofreading and design work. Based in Buenos Aires, since its inception it aims to produce titles that are admirable: as an aesthetic object and as a source of knowledge. In the same way as the publishing houses of the beginning of the last century, Ampersand became a cultural space for discussion and exchange of ideas. We edit books, we curate books, we talk about books, we enjoy books. The different collections address both the social history of written culture and the most revealing contemporary visual studies. Be it texts, images or a piece of clothing, everything can be read, analyzed, discussed. Because we understand reading as an obsession and as a practice that is both hedonistic and subversive.

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Why Ampersand?

The expression "ampersand" goes back to the Latin word et ('and'). Due to its frequent use and the speed that manual writing demanded, a slur was usually formed, a sign that combined the "e" and the "t", and which would later become the & symbol. This copulative link, whose most distant antecedent seems to be a graffiti from Pompeii from 79 a. C., it was pronounced "et per se, et", which means 'and by itself, and'. In 1837, the English language incorporated this letter into its dictionaries, translated as “and per se and”. Everyday speech contracted the expression to its current name, ampersand. Since 2015, at the initiative of designer Chaz DeSimone, the & has its own day: September 8.