The Verdes bookstore, which was the beacon of Basque culture in darker times, was remembered at the Arriaga Theatre in the act of homage to Javi Escudero and Asun Zuloaga, responsible between 1973 and 2005. Thanks to its silent work, culture, knowledge and the Basque Country found a break in the narrow store of Calle Correo de Bilbao. The one that was printed and bookstore at the beginning of the twentieth century was taken in decline and became a reference.

Greens was a refuge for writers, musicians and thinkers. For example, for the young Bernardo Atxaga, who had just arrived in Bilbao. There he found “shelves for shelves”, an inexhaustible source of inspiration. In the last years of the dictatorship and in the following years, where to find the jewels of foreign writers, all the news in Basque (not so many at that time), forgotten classical texts?

The method to learn Basque by Xabier Peña was the first book that Natxo de Felipe bought in Verdes, the key to meet old and new authors in Basque. For Miren Agur Meabe, Verdés was also the door of a new world, a “mosaic of memories”. Joseba Sarrionandia frequently visited these shelves: It appeared by letter in the Arriaga, in the voice of presenter Ane Pikaza.

The smell of the books, the murmur of the conversations between the regular shoppers, were perceived in the program that revived the memory of Verdes that Sunday noon. Gorka Benitez, Ruper Ordorika and Juan Carlos Pérez will also offer a concert. How many records did you sell in Verdes? How many viewers arrived for the first time their new sounds?

In conclusion, Bernardo Atxaga spoke again. He went up a moment to the sky, and there he found Ricardo Toja, Jorge Oteiza, Txema Larrea, Gabriel Aresti, Imanol Berriatua, Andone del Txoko Eder, Andolin Eguskiza... with a calm. But all of them have left, as was Greens in 2005, a year before the turn of the century, devoured by the speed of the new times, dominated by the ruthless rules of the market. Fortunately, those who kept the dream of Greens are among us, and the applause of the crowd gathered at the Arriaga was the warmest tribute to them.