The illustrator Iban Barrenetxea is known in our environment as an illustrator, but as it usually happens on numerous occasions, in 2011 he dedicated his work Zurginaren ipuina (and for the second consecutive year, in this case in Spanish). Now, thanks to the translation of Arkaitz Goikoetxea, we will be able to enjoy in Basque the history of the carpenter Firmin. In fact, this book is the story of a carpenter who did his job perfectly. “Their wheels were so perfect, it was enough to push them with their eyes to start spinning. (…) The seats were tested and someone swore he would no longer sit anywhere else.” But the work of the carpenter changed when a messenger from baron Von Bonbus came to Firmine: “Urgent message: go immediately to the Baron Palace.”

The previous passage evokes to the reader the accounts of the Chinese tradition, of the refined painter, the magical horse of Hang Gan or the wonderful tale The Crazy Emperor of Sarrionandia, who have drunk from the same source and from Firmin. A fine worker, who is dedicated to creating art, to doing beautiful, wonderful and almost perfect things -- and with the will to power, the story of a cacique who wants to use that skill of the worker.

Barrenetxea, alternating the rhythm of text and image, introduces the reader completely into history. In the two large images that account for the baron Von Bonbus, who go in search of the carpenter and see the sick baron in bed, we enter the world of the relations between the carpenter and the baron; the baron, pushed by his war and his ambition, will lose several members… and in all of them the carpenter will make a wood substitute, receiving the consent of all: “Excellent job, great carpenter! This hand of wood is certainly better than the previous one!” and even if both hands and legs are lost, the baron loses his head on a warship. And after he had made his head of wood, not the baron, but all those around him, they told the carpenter that his job was magnificent. “An excellent job, sir, great! This wooden head is certainly better than the previous one!”

And with these words, the story ends, with that point of irony set.

But within that core thread of the baron, Barrenetxea has given us other little stories like that of a modest miller, which help us better understand the nature of the carpenter and make us enjoy all the readers.

The author was known for the level of the images and now also for the text; and we can also say, as in the story: “Good job… better than the previous one!”