Nere Lete translates Bernardo Atxaga

Two Basque Stories
Center for Basque Studies Publishes Two Basque Stories by Famed Basque Author Bernardo Atxaga

The Center for Basque Studies is proud to announce the publication of Two Basque Stories by internationally acclaimed author Bernardo Atxaga. The book presents for the first time in English two of the author’s novellas previously published in Euskara, the Basque language, “Two Letters All at Once” and “When a Snake Stares at a Bird.”

Bernardo Atxaga broke onto the international scene with the 1988 publication of Obabakoak in Euskara. The novel has been published in 25 languages, including an English edition (Vintage, 1994), and earned the author Spain’s top narrative prize among many other awards. That book was praised in The Observer of London as “a brilliant novel, full of life,” and by The New York Times Book Review as a “delicious paella, Baroque and Spanish.”

In Two Basque Stories, Atxaga turns his attention to complex lives lived in the “rustic” Basque village of Obaba (reminiscent of Faulkner’s mythical Yoknapatawpha County) and the creative process of identity. The first novella, “Two Letters All at Once,” tells the story of Old Martin, a former sheepherder consigned to a generic Boise neighborhood. In order to make sense of his life, Martin narrates for an un-understanding grandson the life-altering deception that led him from his native village to the American West. In “When a Snake Stares at a Bird,” a young city-bred boy spending time in his grandfather’s village comes to realize that things he once believed to be simple: nature, animals, and his grandfather, are much more complex than he could have imagined. Evocative illustrations by Antton Olariaga compliment these at once simple and deceptively complex stories. These stories, originally published in Euskara after the publication of Obabakoak, cemented the popularity of Atxaga in his homeland. The volume was translated by BSU Basque Studies professor Nere Lete.

It has been a busy year for Atxaga in English. In February, his novel "The Accordionist’s Son" was published by Graywolf Press. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called the book “a gorgeous and ambitious story about the Basque land and language,” and The New York Times said it was “a sprawling novel about the legacy of civil war in Spain.” And the Fall 2009 issue of the acclaimed California arts journal The Threepenny Review presents Atxaga’s “The Mystery of the Four Birds.”

117 pp., paper (ISBN 978-1-877802-85-0), $19.95.

For more information or to order copies of Two Basque Stories, contact the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. basque.unr.edu