Recently awarded the Etxepare Prize, you are not angry…

No! The opposite! Ha, ha… It was a great joy. I didn't expect it. In 2018 I received the same award for the translation of the work of Gabriel Aresti [Harri eta Herri], so I didn't think they would give it back to me. But I'm very happy, and I'm very happy, because Look at Agurre [Meabe] has been the award-winning play, and Look Agur and I are great friends. We've had a lot of adventures together.

How did the English Tour Bone Roast come? At the request of
the Etxepare Institute we translate samples of authors from an era, I do not know if for the Edinburgh Book Festival or for the London Book Fair. The Etxepare took samples there, and when several UK publishers met, Miren Agurre chose samples of One Crystal Eye and Karmele Jai's mother's hands to translate all the work into English. & '97; I, on the other hand, had been starting to return to Miren Agur in 2001, when he was taking the master's degree. So I started translating their poems. Skin code and others.

In 2001 he began to translate the work of Miren Agur Meabe into English! Since then, 20 years have passed!
Yes! I remember when I started doing the master's degree, when I went to all the bookstores in Bilbao to buy books to take them to England. I took a stack. Cover code involved. And it was instantaneous! Buy, open, read and: “Ah! I will translate this!” I felt very identified. I translated some of the poems in this book, which were published there and here, and I read them also in the readings made by the London Poetry Association at the Royal Festival Hall. I think that's where Miren Agur's career began: the reading of Basque poetry was done at the Royal Hall, led by my mentor Peter Bush, and people really liked it. Months later, I was called from the Dublin Writers Festival, saying that they had chosen Miren Agur's work to read it, and we both went to do that reading. I was for the first time reading a literary festival. For Miren Agur was also his first invitation to participate in a foreign festival.

Why the passion for Basque translation into English?

Since I was young I have had the dream of being a writer: of living in literature, of living a literary and artistic life, and that moment of the Dublin Writers Festival was a confirmation. I thought it would open the way. Then, after making that Dublin bolus, I started translating even more to Miren Agur, publishing his poems and short stories on many sites -- magazines, I mean. Then I also translated a glass eye from Miren Agurre, helped by the Etxepare Institute. Then I talked to those of Parthian [Books] and told them that a glass eye was the first part of a triptych, that the second was the Bone Scratch and the third was How to Store the Ash in the Colco. I told them it was a very original intention, a novel, a collection of stories, and that they were a poem, a triptych, and that the triptych showed how a woman became an artist. They liked the idea and they said, "OK! Let's do all three!" So, a Glass Eye and Bone Roast are made, and the next How to Store the Ash in the Coconut.

You began, with your intention, to translate the poems of Miren Agur Meabe into English. Are you still translating Basque literature into English with your intention? Is there no aid? It cannot
be done without institutional support. The transfer of these samples to England from Etxepare [Institute] contributed greatly to the subsequent translation of those written by Miren Agurre. And, on the other hand, it has also been a great support that Miren Agurre has received the National Prize [Spain]. Well deserved! “What I saw twenty years ago, others have seen now!” I thought when I heard they gave him the prize. Watch Agurre have a voice and a rich, intellectual, kaleidoscopic background: a lot of things come into his work. I think he's an immense writer, that every prize is worth it.

As institutional help has mentioned, is there a strategy to translate literary works into English in Basque?
Ja, ja…

That’s a bad laugh…
No, there’s no strategy. And that's a big problem. I've been saying for years that we need a strategy. I always say they don't see you from the outside unless they understand you. I mean culture. And to understand, and to empathize, you have to use art, there's no other way to communicate, like the Anglo-Saxon world. And I think the Catalans have made this journey perfectly, because they've seen that path needs a lot of things, and they're doing it.

What are those many things?

On the one hand, you have to have money to translate, and not to help translate a little bit, no, to translate the whole work! The translator's work takes a long time paying for everything that costs, what costs, and not down. The translator is specialized, it's hours and hours working, and that has to be paid.

Strategy...

You have to have a strategy, and for that you have to plant in the other's place. If you want to teach Basque culture in universities in the US, England or Australia, you need material to teach culture well. And if you want to show the map of Basque literature, you will have to start from the beginning: From the Etxepare Lingua Vasconum Primitiae, which is fortunately translated. OK. But, after Etxepare, even contemporary literature, there are no translated works! Neither Lauaxeta, nor Lizardi, nor Mirande… nothing! They don't exist. And not Bizenta Mogel, although I've come back a little bit from there and from here. So,

There's no strategy because whoever has to design the strategy doesn't think he has to invent a strategy, and not just to do that work, to pay well the work of those who are going to return those tasks. You can't wait for an academic or an abbot to do something voluntarily. So we're not going anywhere.

Where were you born from, Amaia?
Me? It is a miracle that I existed, because I was a madman, who at the age of 18 went from here to Ireland, who decided to stay there, who got a scholarship to study there, for a thousand incredible circumstances! I studied English and Irish literature, and I was very lucky, because my professor was a very famous scholar who translated from Gaelic. Robert Welsh. In my final year of studies, I wrote the tesina and compared the works of Irish Bernard Maclaverty and Bernardo Atxaga, focused on the representation of the conflict. In that tesina he said, for example, that Atxaga returns from Spanish, and there are losses. It is very complicated… and not just complicated: for me cultural violence is translating the Basque literature into Spanish into English. It's violence. The writer thinks that the Spanish version is made by the author himself, and returning from there to English, the thing is not so violent, because in the end it is the writer himself who translates his work. But he returns it, because the Basques are colonized! Behind all this is a story of violence and trauma.

Colonizing literary translation as well.
We are very assumed that in order for us to see ourselves outside, we must first appear in Spanish. That is a mental barrier, and, I say, the translation of the Basque literature in Spanish is fully accepted. People believe that, as the writers themselves translate, the two works, in Basque and Spanish, are at par. I think the two works are not on par, because that author has written in Basque. And why did he write in Basque? If it is a question of translating into Spanish, do not write in Basque, write directly in Spanish! What should someone write in Euskera if they then do not have to make any effort to translate it directly from Euskera? Translated from Spanish, we devalue the original. I do not understand why the work of Basque writers is still translated from Spanish. I think we're a little bit traumatized, colonized.

And ‘colonized’.

Yes, I believe that we also accept those who cannot be admitted, because, for example, today in the translation world it is very wrong to use bridging language to make a translation. I'm not the only translator who speaks directly from Basque to English, there are four or five more. Why are we still translating from Spanish? Why is this accepted? Why is there no strategy for this not to happen?… Meanwhile, there are many Kuestios.

A lot of questions, don't you answer?

They are all accepted because it is not clear how important our language is, not only to protect and strengthen it from within, but also from outside! He himself says: intramurums and extramurums. He says that we are always intramural, looking inside the house, we see nothing of extramuros. This applies to translation. That is the essence: Basque literature, to strengthen the Basque language from the outside, to give it presence, must be translated directly into English, if we do not take away strength.

Has that been the practice so far?

Above all, yes. However, I would say that half of the Basque literature translated into English has been translated from Basque. There you're going to walk half. For me that's a very hard subject. I always stand before our institutions between a rock and a hard place (behind the wall and in front of the sword), because local institutions do not provide enough value for this translation work and there are no strategies to do all the necessary work. This, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, since Anglo-Saxon publishers do not see what it is to write from a minority language, what it is to want to protect it, why it is important to translate it directly from the original language…, they do not see our needs. They only care to take out the book, whatever the language of its translation. We are in that situation, without any power.

The Catalans have made the way, just copy.

The Catalans, through the Ramon Llul Institute, began to grant subsidies for the translation of books, see! They give all the money to the translator, pay well the job, have made many contacts with external publishers… Walk! In 2019, per hour of pandemic, they got three monographs in Los Angeles Review of Books, the most important additional literature in the United States. Three monographs on Catalan literature, three! Monograph! One year! And in these ten years, they've put a lot of money into translating books, a lot of money.

Neither the CAV government, nor the Navarre government, nor the Basque Public Institution have done so.
If in foreign universities only gives Beginner’s Basque [Euskara for beginners], people don’t point, because in that they see no future. Although the students are tempted, because the Basque is very interesting, for many reasons, in the end they do not choose as a subject because it has no continuity. I saw it again and again at the University of Chicago, when I was an Euskera reader. And then, why do you have so many laps in the world teaching Beginner’s Basque, instead of having everything in two or three places, all levels, from the beginning to the end! And preparing the future translators!

Like the Catalans, it means.

Yes. This is what Catalans do: they have several readers in foreign universities, where it is necessary, working all the time, with an adequate salary... and the people of those readers are translating and preparing future papers. We have none. Why? Because readers cannot reach that level. And the bad thing is, they'll never arrive. I have all these things in common, you don't know how many emails I've sent here and there. How many worse have I said to put panels on the literary conferences held here and there! But they don't listen to me.

What does the direct translation of Basque into English add to Basque? What about the Basque culture?
A lot! Let me tell you one thing: it is easier to walk the road directly from Basque to English, from Spanish to English, because there are more parallels between Basque and English than between any language romance and English. Euskera, like English, is a very synthetic language, with few words it has many meanings. And for example, in the case of translator poetry, I make this journey in a great way, that I easily find the way.

You can make a lot of connections between the two languages, they stay nice. When you pass the Basque language to Spanish, on the other hand, you lose a lot of magic, because the Basque ability to create a world with two words, which the English also has, the Spanish does not have. The word is everything in Spanish. Always the word! Too many words! Basque and English are languages that are more open than Roman languages, a journey from one to the other is more beautiful than that made in Spanish. That's about language.

And from a cultural point of view?
What I said before: if you don't see yourself, you won't understand, you won't empathize with yourself. Why is there today in the United States, of course in left-wing environments, a huge Catalan sympathy for the cause? Why? That is why! Because all those translated books are there! That's a great marketing job, and not only that, it's showing who you are and why you demand independence, that is. It becomes understandable. Like saying: “Here we have a fantastic, different culture, its literature, its art… They are a special group, they are not like others…” And that you have to see, it doesn't happen by itself, or because some people come to eat pintxos here. Coming to eat pintxos does not imply empathy. Yes, coming here and eating pintxos is nice, it is fun, a touristic thing, a passage, it is not something that really stays in the heart: in the heart art stops. Do you want an example?

There’s no help but the example… I
don’t know if it was 2014, or 2016. It was in Chicago and I was invited to give a conference on their planetarium. Once a month, a film is shown and then spoken to three panelists. So Arrival was a movie. Linguistic determinism is the basis of the film: linguistic determinism means that the language it uses gives it a certain perspective, that language provides a particular way of seeing the world. Perspective, therefore. We were three panelists: an astronomer specialized in black holes, an expert in quantum physics and I, translator…

What did they need a translator for? What was their role? The
problem is that the aliens in the movie come to Earth and stay in the air. They say nothing. They just make some sounds and paint some drawings or images. And they ask a translator if he can decode sounds ... The other two panelists came with their scientific roll, and when it was my turn -- I started singing in Basque. Then I talked about linguistic determinism by telling listeners that they knew they hadn't understood without them, but that maybe they felt something. “And if you have felt something, that has brought you the Basque,” I told them. I started out there and kept going. When it was over, who did everybody come to?

Ha, ha… You don’t have to say it!
Who understood what had to be understood from the perspective of language? Through the singing, the dicle was made and the relationship is made. Listeners understood it through culture, through art, and that's what we have to do, try it through art and not bring tourists to San Sebastian eating pintxos. Neither San Sebastian, nor Bilbao, nor Bermeo!

We will have to say: you, as well as translator and writer, are a singer-songwriter and this time you play the flamenco novel…
Kar, kar… In a long time, when I lived in England, I only sang flamenco. Then in Chicago, that flamenco singing became something more hybrid, more experimental. However, I have to admit that I really like flamenco and it has taught me a lot. Flamenco is not only music, but a philosophy of life, and it is therapy, because every stroke teaches you one thing, and when you dominate every stroke you dominate an emotion. And that's a bypass. Flamenco is a very rich world and the lyrics that are sung. The Anglo-Saxon world likes flamenco dances, but it doesn't understand flamenco, and so I decided to make the book.

And there you are...
That's what I'm in, but I have to make recordings, because I want every chapter of the book to start with a song: I'll first put the song, then the translation of the song, and then my memory, whether it's fictional or not, that feeds that song. That's the book. The singer Gatom has a studio in Bermeo and with him I will record songs. Gatom also participated in the Chicago project and we got really good.

On the other hand, in my life I have always had a foot in classical music – I studied in the conservatory – and in Chicago I met very good musicians who played classical music, and also jazz performers. And I started with them and made the album Kantuz - 1931, a classic [musician], a jazzero and a bluesero on the album.

Three different styles.

I like to collaborate with other forms: taking two worlds and creating a third world, that's for me the most beautiful thing in the world. That's what I want in music, in art, in literature and in everything. That's Kantuz - 1931: some songs are flamenco, others from the classical world, others from folklore. And out of them comes a new world. “Reinterpret,” [Federico García] Lorca said, and so the old songs are moderated. We formed the Seroie group in Bermeo, we collected the repertoire of ancient songs – from here, from Spain, from Ireland… –, Gorka Abaunza puts electronic music and Aingeru Torre the saxophone. And we make recordings of field -- birds, eyes on the sea -- and we put them inside our music. And it's a way to release old lyrical songs, kind of hunched, always sung the same way. That has taught me flamenco. I'd like to give a new life to those old songs, get out of that corset.

How is translation, writing and song related?For many years I did everything separately, as if they were compartments, but in the years of Chicago
I realized that it was all one: in my speech, for the first time, I decided to sing, plus flamenco. Every year, at the beginning of the academic year, Humanities Day is celebrated at the University of Chicago, where all donors are invited to donate money. And I was asked to talk about Euskera. The usual thing: me, exotic. “Take me from pop!” I thought and decided to sing flamenco.

Did you ask to speak of the Basque and sang flamenco?
But there was one thing that joined my speech, Euskera and Flamenco: George Borrow. George Borrow was an 18th-century English writer who allowed the first part of the holy books to be translated into Basque. That same year he also brought back the same part, to the calo, to the Romanesque. Borrowk loved Basques and Gypsies, and it is the meeting point between Flamenco and Euskera. I talked about that, and angry with the academic world, I did half of the singing talk. And success! I was surprised! Then there came a ditch behind me, some director, and he said to me, “You got a million more dollars!” Like me, it appeared whole and I received a totally positive reaction. Now I often say that I do art with words: translating literature, writing and music. Words are always my material and forms are translations, stories and songs.

* * * * * * *

“The Writers’
Association of England has found that Google and Met have given 181,000 literary books to artificial intelligence, including A Glass Eye by Miren Agur Meabe, a glass eye. All those books have been stolen without asking anyone for permission! And the Association has denounced all the authors, before the judge! That with artificial intelligence.”

“I’ve been asked
more than once to talk about machine translation machine, and I always say I don’t need that much. A machine will never be able to make the need for a person, an approach yes, a small simplification of our need. If it is not literature, because if it is literature, you make it easier from the beginning than machine! Ha, ha… I don’t know what artificial intelligence is going to bring, that’s everyone’s concern, translators, lawyers, scientists, journalists…”

LAST WORD

The Basques did not see
“Last year I received a request from the London PEN Club. They sent me a translation and wanted me to be told whether that translation was good and whether it was deserving of subsidy. It was a translation of the work of a Basque writer, but they also intended to translate it from Spanish. I found it so strange that I didn't even answer them. I thought, "How dare you ask me?" It hurt me, because I see things very well, but they didn't see any problems with me making such a request."