The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [135]
Few Basques have made better use of the new nation than Bernardo Atxaga. Starting in the emerging Euskera publishing industry, and then having his works translated into Spanish and eventually, other languages including English, he has become the most widely read author in the history of the Basque language. His 1988 novel, Obabakoak, meaning “Things from Obaba,” is a cycle of stories centered on a fictitious Guipúzcoan village. As of 1998, it had sold 45,000 copies in Euskera, a considerable accomplishment in a language with less than 1 million speakers. The Spanish translation sold 70,000 copies, and it has also been translated into fourteen other languages.
Before Atxaga, it was rare for a writer in Euskera to be translated and almost unheard of for them to be translated into languages other than French or Spanish.
Between the first book published in 1545 and 1974, 4,000 books were published in Euskera. In the next twenty years another 12,500 were published. Atxaga said that he started in Euskera by reading Aresti, and three years later he had read every book in Euskera available to him. That would no longer be possible. About 1,000 titles are now published in Euskera every year, including novels, poetry, nonfiction, academic books, children’s books, and translations of classics and best-sellers.
For a very long time, publishing a book in Euskera was a purely political act. The first book entirely in Basque was a collection of both religious and secular poems published in Bordeaux in 1545, written by a priest, Bernard Dechepare, who made his intentions clear in the opening paragraph: “Since the Basques are smart, valiant and generous, and since among them are men well educated in all the sciences, I am amazed that no one has attempted in the interest of his own language, to show the entire world, by writing, that this language is as good a written language as any other.”
Modern Basque publishing began while Franco was in power. Elkar was created in 1972, established as a French nonprofit company based in Bayonne, with twenty small investors, including some Spanish Basque refugees. The little company produced records of popular music in Euskera that earned money to help finance book publishing. After the death of Franco, some of the refugees returned to Spain and established a second base in San Sebastián. With its twin bases, Elkar became the largest publisher of Euskera, but soon many others appeared. Some were financed by Vizcayan banks, the Basque Nationalist Party, or the governments of the three provinces or of Navarra.
A daily newspaper in Euskera was established, along with several weeklies, magazines, and children’s publications. Basque radio and television stations broadcast on both sides of the Pyrenees. The Basque government also supported a young film industry in Euskera.
In addition to the education of Basque youth, 100,000 adult Basques have learned Euskera since Atxaga began his career. The total market is still small. Atxaga recognized that as a great opportunity. “We have the advantage and disadvantage of scale,” he said. “We can do a lot of different things.” Not yet fifty, he had published more than eight novels, twenty children’s books, poetry, essays, and lyrics for his favorite rock band—all in his once forbidden native language. It is the enviable position of a leading artist in a very small country. The ubiquitous Eduardo Chillida is in a similar position, designing monuments in such defining spaces as the oak tree in Guernica, but also designing the logo for the amnesty movement and the trademark for Guipúzcoa’s provincial savings and pension bank.
Jorge de Oteiza, a generation older than the aging Chillida and a founding father of modern Basque abstract sculpture, has not seized these opportunities. The most important collection of his work is stacked on the floor of his studio in the Guipúzcoan coastal town of Zarautz, while he,