Talks ion Contemporary Basque Literature

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 a minimum of 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 besides in a language despised and subject for decades, if not centuries, 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 being able today to offer its consumers – and in abundance – what the best artistic creation has always strive to produce: delight, knowledge, emotion, surprise, consolation. Basque literature has also travelled this fruitful path. We are obviously talking about a small literary system, whose quantitative comparison with those of the most widely spoken languages ​​makes no sense, whose impact on the rest of the world will never cease to be residual. But Basque literature today expresses the world practically as any other literature can. It is literature of the world and for the world. Universal, yes. But also singular, because it is the expression of a series of particularities – social, political, cultural – that are not necessarily found in all parts of the planet. It is a literature to discover. The Cervantes Institute in Manchester invites you to do so through the series of meetings with Basque writers that it has scheduled for these months.

Event coordinated by the Instituto Cervantes in Manchester and Leeds, in collaboration with the University of Liverpool and the Manchester City of Literature.