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Introduction: Bernardo Atxaga's Obabakoak
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10612 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1993 |
220 Words |
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Editor
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OBABAKOAK
Bernardo Atxaga
Pantheon Books, Division of
Random House, Inc., 1992
What are the chances that a book of stories written in an obscure, non-Indo-European language would become an event in international publishing? Not good. Yet Basque poet and novelist Bernardo Atxaga has managed this unlikely achievement, and Obabakoak is being hailed as a modern classic.
Out of Atxaga's imagination has sprung a village, Obaba, a microcosm of the whole world. His tales from Obaba magically interweave Basque oral culture with the literary traditions of Europe and the Near East. Atxaga has described his own journey into the modern world; but, having reached outward, he has returned to his place of origin--which is both a time, his childhood, and a cultural location, the Basque country of Spain. What Atxaga describes is a pilgrimage that corresponds with a universal human desire, which may explain why many readers find his stories compelling and unforgettable.
Philip W. Silver, a scholar of Spanish literature, outlines Atxaga's development as a writer and the origins of Obabakoak. Silver's commentary is accompanied by excerpts from the book and a short essay by Basque poet-anthropologist Felipe Juaristi on the transition from oral tradition to literature. Next, we hear from the storyteller himself through an in-depth interview conducted by literary scholar Marie-Lise Gazarian-Gautier.
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