A few years ago, Irene Larraza, director of the Etxepare Basque Institute, said that the work of Basque creators can nowadays coexist as equal with that of top-level artists from all over the world. This is an affirmation that seems to be shared today by anyone who has acquired even a minimum familiarity with Basque art and literature, especially contemporary ones.

It is an affirmation that contains, on the other hand, an extraordinary fact, namely that an overall meagre and neglected tradition, expressed also in a language despised for decades, if not centuries, and subjected to all kinds of discrimination, has been able to develop just in the period of the last 40 or 50 years to the point of today being able to offer its consumers – and in abundance – what the best artistic creation always strives to produce: delight, knowledge, emotion, surprise, consolation. Basque literature has also travelled this fruitful path.

The series is coordinated by Dr. Gorka Mercero (University of Liverpool) and the third talk is with the writer Iban Zaldua.

Iban Zaldua (1966). He teaches history and is from Donosti. His books include Gezurrak, gezurrak, gezurrak, gezurrak (2000), La isla de los antropólogos y otros relatos (2002), Itzalak (2004), Etorkizuna (2005, Euskadi Prize for Literature), Biodiskografiak (2011), Inon ez, inoiz ez (2014), Sekula kontatu behar ez nizkizun gauzak (2018), Como si todo hubiera pasado (2018)… He has also written novels such as Si Sabino viviría (2005) and essays such as Ese idioma raro y poderoso (2012, Euskadi Prize for essays in Spanish) or (Euskal) Literaturaren alde (eta kontra) (2016) and comic scripts such as Azken garaipena, together with the cartoonist Julen Ribas (2011, Euskadi Prize for young people’s literature). His latest work published in Spanish is the collection of essayistic texts Panfletario. Manifestos, decálogos y otros artefactos a favor (y en contra) de la literatura (2021) and, in Basque, the anthology Nola izan garen gauza (2021). He was a member of the literary magazine Volgako Batelariak.

In Spanish