Bernardo Atxaga, winner of the Literature Award
The Basque writer has been honoured for “his contribution to the modernisation and international projection of the Basque and Spanish languages”.
11November2019 11 November 2019 |
Noticia
The jury of the National Literature Institute highlighted “his fundamental contribution to the modernisation and international projection of the Basque and Spanish languages”. It is now commonplace to talk about a before and after Atxaga in literature written in Basque. He denies it. “And not because of false modesty, eh?”, he adds. “I would like to be a historicist, but times don't change with us but rather the other way around. I appeared at the right time, but before that there had already been translations of Homer into Basque and great authors such as Gabriel Aresti or Jon Mirande. What happened was that timing was not on their side. Something that did happen to my generation”.
