van’t hoffen ilea

unai elorriaga · elkar

When the National Spanish Narrative Prize firework display got under way, all that were missing to the novel were the finishing touches. That was before the writer was acclaimed. And the blessings of the subsidies be on you, the Igartza grant. It’s hard to love civil servants, but thanks to Elorriaga, we get fond of Matias Malandar. He goes from house to house with his trusty tape recorder recording peoples’ lives on tape. There’s the Prison Secretary who reduces a convict’s sentence to a quarter the original, the one about the person whose gambling pushed them to sell their bath. During all of this, he carries on talking to the anarchist who runs a ball through his fingers. And he imagines his life every time he runs into a woman at the toilet door. In an Idus world, spaghettis commit suicide by jumping off a plate, bees are leaders and rain-coats can be very intimidating. There’s a lot to SP. More from irony and play. And it’s got a democratic name. Those who went to one of his talks decided that “Hiztegiak eta Hilerriak” (Dictionaries and Cemeteries) wasn’t on and that the name should be “Van Hoffen ilea” (Van Hoff’s hair). The biggest seller this Spring.

deserriko karrikak

mikel ibarguren · susa poesia

One of those to debut at The Durango Basque Book and Music Fair was Ibarguren's second collection of poetry. Poems, on the poet's life. On exile, distant and absence. Straight to the point. The poet speaks of the life of a political refugee: the physical and mental barriers. He looks for the traces of a lover's lips on cigarette butts. In used beds and mugs. He wants to hear her voice destroying songs, every time he hears the melody he waits for the tuneless voice to burst into song. Every street of his exile is a kiss, a quickly-given shaking caress. And the journey ends at Carrefour des Evades, the crossroads of those on the run.