Yin and yang
China, the daily miracle of a billion people of the last eighty years, Maorena and Zhou Linked i, the people who travelled 7,000 kilometers – 80,000, barely 10,000 –, that mixture of Confucius and Lenin and four thousand years of history, the small and gigantic China, has become the biggest transformation of our time into a book “like” to Beatriz Chivite. Forget that the world is nothing more than the bitterness, the salty, the bitterness and the sweet of always. Beijing smoke brings its fifth taste.
Beijing's smoke is the industrial steam in the country where environmental degradation is most raw, but also the silk curtain of poetry: “Cutting a piece of lemon/ I remember it,/ lying on the balcony/ a gintoni in the hand/ and a book in the face”.
Beijing's smoke is not the most ingenious thesis I've read this year, it's not the most heartbreaking poetic testimony I've ever had. Beijing smoke is not an impetuous reading that has prevented me from sleeping all night. The smoke from Beijing is the freshest, most suggestive, most interesting book I've read a long time ago. And it has another virtue that's very charged: entertaining.
In this book written by Beatriz Chivite over the past year in China, not only are the accounts there collected. It goes beyond the concepts here and there, to the uncertain concepts: “Old sleeveless white t-shirt men/ sweaty showmen, where do they look at these sharp eyes?/ In the footsteps of time/ and in the midday naps?/ In the sun of the six of Houhai Lake/ or in the changes of China?/ To metamorphosis and unintelligible mutations.”
It's that mystery, the most unintelligible mutation, that makes this book special. The landscape of the eyes that contemplate the landscape, a spring still frozen that has barely arrived, the despair of the exasperated, the nostalgia… all fit, as in a refined and refined epigram, in a poem of Chivite. Because in this poem of universal images you'll find delicate and big at once. On the one hand, the almost imperceptible tremor of gigantic things and on the other, the multiplied echo of small things. The writer dedicates the book to eternal themes, to beauty, to love, to the tattoos of time, but he writes about them without noticing the weight of the themes, passes like a boat, without leaving marks, through the seas. A physical journey turned into an inner journey, the smoke of Beijing is not poetry, but a poetized life.
When the dragon swallowed the
sun Aksinja Kermauner
Alberdania, 2024
-------------------------------------------------------
Dozens of books have been written by Slovenian writer Aksinja Kermauner. This is the first published in Basque, translated by Patxi Zubizarreta... [+]
Puntobobo
Itxaso Martin Zapirain
Sowing, 2024
----------------------------------------------------
The title and cover image (Puntobobo, Wool Bite and Rag Doll) will suggest mental health, making the point and childhood, but more patches will be rolled up as the book... [+]
Itsasoa bete urre
Dani Martirena
Irudiak: Ana Ibañez
Txalaparta, 2022
--------------------------------------------
Liburu honetara barneratzen den irakurleak sentsazio ugari izango ditu. Deigarria da azaleko letren urre kolorea eta zuritasuna, goialdean ageri den... [+]
Migranteak
Issa watanabe
1545 argitaletxea, 2024
-------------------------------------------
Ezagutzen ez nuen 1545 argitaletxeak 2024an itzuli eta kaleratu du Issa Watanaberen Migranteak liburua. Animalia talde batek egiten duen migrazio prozesua kontatzen du; eta... [+]
Adania
Shibli
Translation: Aitor Blanco Leoz
Igela, 2024
----------------------------------------------
During these days, an Israeli soldier is bombarding hospitals, schools, Palestinian refugee camps with drones as if it were a video game, while in the West we see on... [+]
Fun Home. A tragic family
history Alison Bechdel
Txalaparta, 2024
---------------------------------------------
Fun Home. Alison Bechdel is known for the first publication of the graphic novel A Tragic Family Story (2006), although he himself participated in several... [+]
PLEIBAK
Miren Amuriza Plaza
Susa, 2024
--------------------------------------------------
Susa has published Miren Amuriza's second novel in the atrium of the Durango Fair: Plead. It's plebiscites because you're singing about an earlier recording. Berria includes the... [+]
Book Non sense
Edward Lear
Translation: Juan Kruz Igerabide
Denonartean, 2024
----------------------------------------------
The writer and illustrator Edward Lear published this work in 1846. As Igerabide says in the prologue of the book, “nonsense humor, absurd... [+]
Hetero
Uxue Alberdi
Susa, 2024
----------------------------------------------------
In the era of negationism, the manosphere and trolls, the contribution of literature is essential, because it is an exceptional instrument to look at the folds of reality: the situations... [+]
Guardasola wants rain
Patxi Zubizarreta
Illustrations: Irrimarra
Ibaizabal, 2024
---------------------------------------------
30 years ago Patxi Zubizarreta published the book Marigoringoak hegan; J. M. Illustrated by Lavarello and by the hand of the Catalan publisher... [+]
Eyes on the horizon
Writer: Illustrator Miren Agur
Meabe: Ane Pikaza
Elkar, 2020
-------------------------------------------------------
Miren Agur Meabe has published several texts and books. He's worked with all the literary genres: children's and youth literature,... [+]
Barrengaizto
Beatrice Salvioni (Translation:
deceit Fernando Rey)
Txalaparta, 2024
------------------------------------------------
Fernando Rey has chosen the title of Barrizto to translate La malnata de Beatrice Salvioni. King says he has tried to be the voice of the... [+]
PELLOKERIAK
Ruben Ruiz
Illustrations: Joseba Beramendi, exprai.
Elkar, 2022
-----------------------------------------------
Rubén Ruiz offers a new work of short stories. They are not micronarratives, because the stories, although they can be read independently, have a... [+]
Memet
Noemie Marsily and Isabella
Cieli For Centos, 2022
--------------------------------------------------
We opened the zipper of the camping in red and looked through the leek along with Lucy. With this cover, the reader receives the comic book Memet. Simple words... [+]
A Heart Museum
Leire Vargas
Elkar, 2024
-----------------------------------------------------
The Basque cultural system has a thirst for young people. That's what Leire Vargas said in the written column in Berria. The industry is looking for fresh, varied and diverse... [+]