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The editorial Igela loses her autonomy and Erein manages it

  • After the retirement of the early owners of the frog, the publisher Erein owns the frog, and now Erein decides to suspend the contract of a single Igela worker on the grounds that the agreed functions have not been fulfilled. For the moment, Igela will be managed from within the editorial Erein and stress that it will not be closed.
Lander Majuelo eta Xabier Olarra, egungo editorea eta aurrekoa ARGIAri eskainitako elkarrizketa batean, 2021ean. Argazkia: Peru Iparragirre / ARGIA CC BY SA

10 July 2023 - 09:51
Last updated: 14:55

"Friends, it's over." The editorial Igela has published on July 10 a note that starts with these words. Lander Majuelo has been the editor and only worker of the Rana in the last three years; Erein has suspended the contract of the worker and, at the moment, will not hire more, according to ARGIA. Therefore, all the autonomy granted to the worker will be lost.

Among others, Xabier Olarra was part of Igela from its creation to the end, and three years ago he signed an agreement with the publisher Erein for Igela Erein to keep it. The editorial Erein decided to include a worker in Pamplona, in the city where the editorial Igela was founded and developed, and according to Erein gave him all his autonomy, analyzing and reviewing the economic conditions and objectives year after year. "As a result of the breach of these functions, the publisher Erein has had to cancel the contract with the aforementioned worker," he reports in a note.

Erein clearly states that he has not decided to stop the editorial Igela and remember that the frog catalog is available inside Erein. In addition, Erein will "do everything possible" to "carry out the editorial project".

Erein undertakes to publish the five books of the Rana in progress until December. These would be the writers who would come back. Joyce Carol Oates, Fiodor Dostoievski, Adania Shibli, Zadie Smith and Annie Ernaux.

"Books translated into Basque from around the world are part of Basque literature"

In the spring of 2021, ARGIA published an interview with Xabier Olarra, founder of the Rana, and Lander Majuelo. Olarra replaced Majuelo in August 2020.

The editorial Igela arises from the need to disseminate Basque literature. Olarra missed the black novel. Here is a passage from this interview:

Xabier Olarra: (...) It seemed to me that hundreds of black novels were needed in Basque so that my students of the time could read. So, innocent, we left without knowing which black hole we could get in. Black, but you'd see a lot of bright spots, far away.

So Igela starts from the need to have books translated into Basque?
B.O. : The need was enormous. We gave the students 100 meters, because every day it starts and another two or three Basque novels, and they forced them to read poems like a poem by Aresti... It was necessary and it did not exist. We were two teachers of the founders of the frog and we started from that need. That was a starting point, but we did not settle for it, we have to open up a little perspective. In view of what was at the time in the translation world, the needs were much greater. That is why EIZIE [in 1988] and Universal Literature [in 1989] also emerged. We did.


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