When an old man (writer) dies, it is part of the memory of the world melting into nothing. Despite the measures, the resolution of the well-known Amadou Hampaté Ba can also be applied to the shrimp created in Banka. Whatever it was, it was this idea that ripped my hull when I was told that Marijane Minaber (1926-2017) had died.

He spent most of his life between Bayonne and Uztaritze working for the Basque-Eclair newspaper, most of the secretaries, but occasionally publishing articles to satisfy the reading tide of the Basques. It must be said that in those times the habit of levitating was strong in the public... and was a pioneer in all the fields it dealt with: journalism, broadcasting, and literature, without ever boasting about its margins.

He was a shadowy entrepreneur, who was in some way hooked by Basque things and Basque children, who was quietly and in the humility that belonged to the wives of that time, tearing lines that were quite humiliated. Many women did not become famous throughout the history of the northern word, apart from the Maddi Ariztia of the nineteenth century and the Madalena Jauregiberri of Alos, a contemporary of Marijan. In his care, he used pseudonyms to sign writings, such as Miss or Atalki, as if anonymity guaranteed him certainty.

When we were kids, the Txori Kantaria collection, sent to us at Christmas by our uncle from Paris, would incorporate the Basque language, germinate with its green skin with poetry that made it a myth that it had elements of our natural environment such as rain, snow, birds, steaks, mountains and rivers. Later we took advantage of the two tomes of the Dictionnaire Basque pour tous to try to soften the rude of our sentences.

Marijane Minaberi’s ability to observe, coquina and determination can be seen only in photographs. Bidders in a copy of the vital department, for example. When the people in the weekly Ezponda talked about the place of the wives with the bertsolari about the patasca, he was not afraid to respond without hair in his mouth, on the contrary. For being humble, it can be curiosity.

Sometimes it seems to me that Marijane Minaberri opened the door to the generation of writer wives and plaza-andere who grew up today in the north (and also in the south, where the situation was not better). The tangibility of reflection overwhelms me in this orphaned morning.

Marijane, sing now in our hearts!