When we were getting up and down the polygraph, we got the grim news that they're going to take Sautrela off. Then the specifications have come, we have heard that the session “can come back” in 2013. As far as possible, almost everything is possible. Let us not forget the missing Posdata and Zinemateka who, like Sautrela, were moving away from the polygraph television model, or the Orain programme, which is always wobbling. Yes, cultural lovers also pay taxes honestly, at least enough to deserve a few TV hours a week. We do not demand that much; the conformation is too easy, of course.

For those who love the literature of my generation, Sautrela has probably been the main referent of Basque literature in the media. At least for me it was. Sautrela occupies a considerable part of my literary and, therefore, sentimental education. I remember once I saw Juan Gartzia return to the bookstore waiting for Godot and soon after he published it, explaining to me about that strange world of Samuel Beckett. That summer I read the most well-known plays in Irish and there I did that of Eugène Ionesco. Ten years later, as a master's thesis, I would present my thesis about Beckett, almost 600 kilometers further away, in Barcelona. Within a few months, on a bookshelf at the library of the Reading Foundation or Samuel Beckett, I would find the translation of Gartzia, the first one I had seen in Sautrela, 1,000 kilometers an hour.

In the large Basque Country, we have little space to talk about universal literature in Euskera, and Sautrela was one of the last strongholds. Few literary sessions would speak with such respect of “other” literatures, stupid chucherías, Sautrela, rather than a program dedicated to Basque literature. The Nobel Prizes Gao Xingjian and José Saramago have passed through Antonio Tabucchi, Marie Darrieussecq, Quim Monó, Antonio Lobo Antunes, Enrique Vila-Matas, Pavel Kohout, Ismael Kadaré, Sautrela. But Sautrela has also taught us who were James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Italo Calvino, Anton Chequhov, Augusto Monterroso, Simone de Beauvoir, Truman Capote, J. M. Coetzee, Marguerite Duro, Jorge Luis Borges, Jack Kerouac.

Many of my colleagues have worked on the programme and I would venture to say that it has also been an exceptional school for them; let us say, Eider Rodriguez, Edorta Jimenez, Kirmen Uribe, Jon Benito, Lander Garro are some of those who have gone there. Director and presenter of almost all seasons, Hasier Etxeberria, of course, not to mention.

But in addition to talking about literature, Sautrela himself was often a jewel. With an infinitely delicate realization, with music as warm as beautiful, with accurate and careful readings, there were no literary programs of that kind. And all of that with a very modest budget, as you know. But the filmmakers, the cameras, etc. have also done a great job.

I don't know what kind of audience results I would have. But I know that no audiometer will be able to calculate the value of the above, nor that of seeing Pello Lizarralde, Josu Landa, Anton Garikano, Lourdes Oñederra, Xabier Olarra, Ur Apalategi, Koro Navarro, Amaia Lasa, Joxanton Artze, Itxaro Borda, among others. Let us not forget: there are meters that do not stick to the television apparatus. Goodbye.