Line 1: Speculative fiction in Durango plans

Imagine the xxiii century: the whole universe is governed by Basques, happiness and well-being never known. But resistance begins to organize itself to recover the supremacy of Spanish culture of yesteryear. This is the starting point of the novel Euskalia (Elkar) by Mikel Alvarez Sarriegi. Thanks to the multiple cultural references used in this ironic story, more than one reader will win.

Next stop of the spaceship: the planet Ostadar 7310 (Denonarte). This book by Iñigo Ibarra shows the harmonious coexistence between men and androids. The protagonist works by reprogramming misbehaving androids. Until you play differently with one. This novel, with surprises in each chapter, contemplates the world that can bring the current hyperconnected life.

Berriz zentauro (Elkar), by Katixa Agirre, brings us to a future that does not seem so far away, through the protagonist Paula Pagaldai, who travels to Paris to investigate feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. The novel combines several thematic and temporal plans: the immediate future, the 18th century, the boundaries between genders -- virtual sex, extended reality, increased experiences. Everything will be very different in the future. Or not so much?

In the novel by Asel Luzarraga Esan gabe doa (Txalaparta), we will meet the federation of free peoples Askayala. It is in a tense situation, threatened with invasion by an international alliance. The novel faded around four main characters invites us to think about the utopia of the future, combining speculative fiction with magical realism.

Line 2: Black and Mystery Novels: Looking for the Landako Killer

First case: Edu Saragueta, who we will find in Aingeru Epalza's novel "The Company of Repentant Smokers" (Elkar), is not the same as the novel Rock’n’Roll (Elkar, 2000). It's about 60 years old, it has healthier habits, but everything else is quite disaster: unemployment, loneliness, attempts to link on the Internet... You're going to be asked for a series of reports about the Islamic community, and then you're going to start things happening.

We also have the novelty of one of the masters of Basque thrillerism: Alberto Ladrón Arana takes us to 1948 in the novel Ilunpeko zelataria (Elkar). Two 12-year-old boys in Pamplona. One of them will rip off the action with a scarf found in the movies. Finding out that she is the property of a kidnapped girl, they start looking for her. Compared to the writer's previous works, here is more evident the tendency to fantasy, keeping conversations so intense, suspense and the adventures that are their own.

And Jon Alonso returns to the black genre with the novel Amaiur bat (Amaiur Gaztelu Elkartea / (H)ilbeltza) each year. The starting point is a film that is being recorded in Baztan, a passionate love story set in the time of Amaiur's siege 500 years ago. An unexpected death accelerates the facts, giving way to a story of intrigue, accompanied by a sense of humor that Alonso gives nothing when he writes in this genre.

Andoni Agirrezabala debuts in genre with Etxe berdea (Erein). It takes us until 29 October 2005, a people in which several murders were committed. The police came, but it came back without much foundation. But the village sheriff kept investigating on his own. This is the work that the reader will have in hand: testimonies about what happened, presented to the found footage style, in a novel of voices and living stories.

The last bullet, a translation imported from Italy: Agur, maitea, ikusi (Txalaparta, translated into Basque by Koldo Biguri) from Massimo Carlotto. Giorgio Pellegrini is a former militant from the far left. Years later in South America, he returns to Italy, but he does not want to end up in jail. That's why he sells old comrades. Corruption, social criticism and violence.

Line 3: Space to think: several attempts this year

Iñigo Antsorregi started feeling sad in 2019. Emotionally tired. From a moment on, fatigue became painful. Inside, something broke. He got suicidal thoughts. After an intense work, taken from that hole, tells the experience in the autobiographical essay At home from my pain (Elkar), thinking that it can help those who can find themselves in similar situations.

Juno Mac and Molly Smith are authors of the book Puta zikinak (Katakrak). They came to prostitution after underpaid jobs, which also changed politically, as they began to approach from liberal feminism to communist positions. Amaia Astobiza Uriarte translated this essay into Basque focused on the fight for the rights of sex workers from English.

Translated by Ane Garcia López, we can read in Basque the Masculinities (Elkar). R.W. This work by Australian sociologist Connell intends to answer a central question: what is the place of men in the fight for gender equality? This work is attributed to the first use of the concept of “hegemonic masculinity”. It is the final result of the Eskafandra series launched by Elkar and Jakin.

Leire Milikua, under the shadow (Susa) of Larramendi, focuses on peasant women. The reader will see their triple subalternity: they are women, peasants and rural, in a patriarchal, capitalist and urban world, and in the Basque Country. This session, written with great capacity for synthesis, can serve to review the prejudices that are installed in the minds of the majority.

For its part, Aiora Zabala Aizpururen Natura wow (Alberdania) offers some keys to addressing the current climate change issue. The fundamental idea would be that it is possible to think more freely about problems such as the climate emergency and the loss of biodiversity, and therefore to act more creatively on the political decisions to be taken.

Dialogue is the classic method of thinking about ourselves, since the time of Socrates. In the book The Night Debates (Erein) by Agustín Arrieta Urtizberea, four young people who have attended a congress will get to know each other and wake up every night the debate between them: truth, science, religion, love, sex, art, fiction, values, happiness… The two genres that Arrieta has worked on in his trajectory, the fictional narrative, this essay.

Line 4: Durango is also a comic book fair

Six hands have been gathered to carry out the comic book Mikel Laboa (Elkar): Harkaitz Cano, Unai Iturriaga and Joseba Larratxe. This biographical work on the musician born in San Sebastian will draw the reader’s attention from the beginning, as the first pages of history are told as a western.

A classic comic, published by Art Spiegelman in 1991 in Maus (Astiberri), can now be read in Basque. The work translated by Julen Gabiria tells two parallel stories: Spiegelman's relationship with his father and those who lived in a Nazi concentration camp. Spiegelman depicted all the characters as animals of human appearance, thus reflecting the de-individualization that was essential in order to carry out the Holocaust.

Instead, individual work focuses on the Usue Egia (Denonarte) water collate. The reader will find the experiences of a woman about 30 years old, in a comic traversed by numerous cultural references. Frustrations, humor and fantasy with songs like Chavela Vargas, Henry Purcell or Nacho Vegas.

No sleep till Shengal (Black Pharmacy) from Zerocalcare has been published in Basque shortly after its publication in Italy, thanks to the translation of Koldo Izagirre. It is a chronicle of the Inidians who managed to escape the ISIS genocide in 2014. The Italian comicero has given every prominence to a people capable not only of leaving the hole in hell, but of inventing a new social organization in the middle of nowhere.

Adur Larrea brings us to the past in the comic book Lurbinto (Elkar). XVIII. The Convention War of the century has just ended and some of the losers, when they return to their peoples, find a bleak panorama: burned or occupied their homes, their lands in the hands of others... but they have weapons. And they know how to use it. The Vizcaíno Labortano cartoonist tells us in this latest work a little known aspect of our history.

The Bertsos have been the starting point of Ainara Azpiazu Aduriz in the comic book Utzi azalari (Dobera). The Txalaparta Nagusia 2017 has departed from those sung by Maialen Lujanbio in the session of Irún to introduce the reader into the skin of a trans non-binary person. The new work of Hernaniarra allows us to reflect on bodies and lives in transition.

In transition no, but the protagonist of the comic book Fake Footprints (Harriet) by Bruno Duhamel is in full swing. For fifteen years he has played the role of Johnson Marshall in a show in the American West and he has ended up taking the job seriously: he took his gun to a tourist and is now unemployed. This account of the journey that starts after losing everything is the penultimate result of the difficult French cartoonist. A good opportunity to delve into the wide catalog of the editorial Harriet. This year the Japanese manga have also begun to be published in Euskera: you will also find the Cube Arts of Tomomi Usui at their booth.

Line 5: Like in a story

Samuel and Slawo (Alberdania), by Karlos Linazasoro, is a tour of force, 86 stories in 150 pages, combining the black humor and the tendency to absurdity, so common in it. As the title itself announces, these stories written under the influence of the literatures of Beckett and Mrozek are a demonstration of a concentrated tale.

The reader will find stories written in The Brilliance of Itzal (Erein) by Arrate Egaña, with direct prose and without free decoration, which form complex social portraits. This collection includes the Márquez narrative, winner of the Gabriel Aresti Storytelling Contest in Bilbao in 2013.

The Tale, presented in September by Iban Zaldua, is a deception (Elkar) in which he has combined components appreciated in his writing – round finals, ironic tone – with a tendency towards a narrative of long innovative breathing compared to previous books. They are stories of all kinds, faded by a personal and identifying style.

Jon Benito, without being as fruitful as the previous ones, has the ability to do something every time he publishes something. Lagun minak (Black Pharmacy) is a book that combines poems and stories in a literary exercise in search of a writing appropriate to our time. The reader will find broken characters and a constant effort to go beyond conventional narrative styles.

Among the books not originally published in Euskera, for the first time two Catalan authors can be read in Basque: Caterina Albert i Paradis wrote with pseudonym Victor Català. The book collects ten stories, proposing a journey from the initial modernism of Català to its late texts.

Irene Pujadas, for his part, has become popular in the last period of Catalan writers. Its Zatak (Igela) is composed of 21 stories and is in Basque thanks to the translation of Amaia Apalauza. Pujanos tells anecdotes that seem from everyday life, but that daily life is broken, revealing uncomfortable truths.

In the Universal Literature collection, Winesburg by Sherwood Anderson, Ohio, translated by Joannes Jauregi. This book may be Anderson’s most praised work and influenced later American writers, Faulkner, Hemingway. The inability to escape the life of the people is frequent in 21 stories, and the book is generally characterized by the “look of the grotesque”.

It should not be forgotten that Iker Sancho has translated 31 stories from Anton Chequhoven (Elkar) into Basque. The news was unbeatable: in addition to renewing the opportunity to immerse yourself in the humorous and profound stories of the Russian writer, it has given us 31 good reasons, at least, to learn why the story is not the little sister of the novel.