- The editorial Farmacia Negra has published in the Hondamuin of the Italian historian Zerocalcare. Koldo Izagirre has been in charge of translating Italian into Basque and in their presentation at the Komikigunea de Donostia-San Sebastián they have highlighted that one can read in Basque rather than in Spanish and with an almost French version, a raw portrait of young people born in the 1980s.
Garbiñe Ubeda Goikoetxea has highlighted the difficulty of reading comics in Basque to start presenting the book that picks up the work. He has also read the first Zerocalcare comics in French and has therefore brought to the table the following question: “What cross of astros do you have to have in order to read this in Basque?” He replied immediately: “Well, one like the one you have here.” He looked at his two colleagues. David Zapirain has come together to see published in the Hondamuin, “which has not given peace until this is translated into Basque”, according to Ubeda; and Koldo Izagirre, who has been reinventing the underground style of comics, rather than translating it.
Michele Rech, that is, Zerocalcar, published in 2017 in Hondamuina a work of marked autobiographical character.
“Zerocalcar has no complexes to recognize its popular culture,” explains Zapirain and adds that “it’s a vivisection of our society” this two-volume comic book, the first presented this Thursday. His pages tell you about the life of the comic maker who has sold thousands of books around the world and the contrast he feels when he meets with his youth friends: they live in a situation of total insecurity and the difference between the two social situations worsens the closest relationships. Zapirain explains that it is a “violent” book, which sometimes leads you to interrupt the reading.
How to return to the text without displeasure
“I don’t know anything in Italian, I told David,” explains Koldo Izagirre, who explained his work back to Hondamuin. According to Pasaia's writer, he has had "strong discussions" with Zapirain to decide who had to sign the translation, as his contributions have also been important in the book's texts.
He then explains the three levels of Hondamueña's language: the one that uses the narrator in the first person, the one that appears when he talks to people around him and the record that changes when he meets with childhood friends. To bring history properly, he explained that he went beyond direct translation. For example, although in some interviews it would be correct to translate expressions such as “what the hell”, Izagirre has tried to make a greater effort so that the “underground and post-proletarian language” of the characters of the work of Zerocalcare is read with as much salinity as in the original.
The challenge has been not to lose the “richness that gives its filth” without betraying the original. The result is already in the hands of anyone who wants to read it.