Can we qualify you as a Western essayist with a Northeast vocation?

For the Back to Leizarraga trial? Well, though, I'm not a scholar or an expert of our classics, [Joanes] Leizarraga I don't really know him, because I haven't worked in earnest. Instead, and for example, at one time I read all of those from the collection of classic 19th century writers, with more or less likes, sometimes enjoying, sometimes suffering... I tell you this by the nature of those works.

In any case, it leans north.

Years ago I had a flash, I saw that here until the Great War there was an entirely Basque Basque Country; I studied the works here, and the doctors and notaries, and I saw that the plain people were also Euskaldun. However, I realised that this Basque country suddenly collapsed. However, I realised that in Hegoalde there was no Basque country entirely in Euskaldun, and yet I realised that this mediocre vasquism is maintained. Most of what was written there was in Spanish, here [northeast] in Basque. There I have an incomprehension, that decline of the North, that sinking…

Can we say that the strong Basque society emerged as a result of the rebirth of the Queen of the Kingdom of Navarre with Juana III de Albret in the sixteenth century, collapsed with the French Revolution?

I do not think that was the case. In 1914 I. Until the World War the Basque Country here, with exceptions, has lived in Euskera. The people of Ipar Euskal Herria were Euskaldun until the beginning of the century, whatever their standard of living, lived in Euskera. Well, in any case, I've met the society of the 19th century through reading.

You have a habit of being at Sara's Writers' Congress.

I came with the excuse of a book around the year 2000, and since then I have not failed.

To the south the Durango Fair and to the north the Sara Fair. Or should we take what we have here differently?

Here's another measure, another form of people. I come to see my friends with the excuse of books. Durango's is another story. Still, I come to be with my friends, I don't like to walk from stand to stand.

Don't you like the literary environment?

I'm not from the literary world, I know people from that world, but I'm an outsider. I look at that world with a lot of interest, I like to read and know what literary models they use to use them, but writers are others, although I also like to put the letters together.

You are an essayist. You like to bring science, history and Basque Country together. How is the dissemination of science?

Scientific dissemination in Basque… There are a couple of magazines. There's a whole chair, there's an effort ... But the disclosure that is there at the moment is not to my liking, not entirely.

Why?

For those who work are last-minute, that is, the “last cry”. Most of what we find in the Basque Country about science is what is published by the journals Nature or Science, which Elhuyar disseminates, and of course, what is necessary. However, we cannot go backwards, the dissemination of science cannot be anything else. The people who work in the world of science are relaxed right now, and other issues, very interesting, are in the background.

For example…

Well, setting as an example what you've studied is not the most likely, but here [in Iparralde] was Armand David [naturalist and biologist of Ezpeleta, discoverer of the panda bear], father of the panda, but nobody knows. How is it possible that a scientist of such a high natural value, being ours, does not have books or any of them? And I repeat, it's not because I did [Armand David, Panda's father program, Elhuyar, 2001]. Similarly, we have a lot of local accounts, which are very interesting for disclosure. With these science themes is the history of this people, not knowing what has happened. Why do these issues have no place in evolutionism until the day before yesterday? What has conditioned this? These conditions must be known and know the criteria among experts of the past. They have to be disseminated, but not just disseminated, the ways of spreading them are very important.

Is science and history compatible?

It is obvious. It depends on how you understand what's behind the science tag and how you interpret the story. History can be endless, but if you associate a person with a situation like this, with an international environment, then science and history come together. I tried to do it.

In the opinion of some, Kepa Altonaga’s test books are special.

I do not agree. The specials may be in Euskal Herria. I try to mimic some of the models I've seen outside, I mean, mixing science, history and autobiography, like I do this kind of confusions, but I can cite a half dozen essayists who also do it outside -- Stephen Jay Gould and David Quammen, for example -- so my stuff is not special. If I were original, I would be happy, but I don't, I try to imitate myself, that's right, to imitate myself.

To Patagonia by Hazparne. One of the critics has said that those in Lotilandia have confused the essay with history and fiction in a town in full revegetation.

What is fiction in that book? Well, I would say that everything is authentic and well documented. However, because of Patagoniara Hazparne no, when he was published he was among the best sellers, very happy for the editorial and for himself, but I was surprised to see that he was not classified among the “non-fictitious”, but among the “fictitious”. “And that? All right,” I thought. The essay tells a real story, succeeded in reality. I've spent several hours documenting all of them. Of course, this classification among fictitious was a kind of praise, that history was so well sown that it seemed fictitious, that there is in my endeavour a kind of fantasy, a kind of creation. But no, no, no. Everything I've told from the beginning to the end is true, although some of the threads I choose for storytelling can be autobiographical. When I blame him I can introduce a point of irony, a drop of humor, but in principle everything I say is the same, that cannot be forgotten, that is true.

He has also had good criticisms. This one from Alex Gurrutxaga de Berria, for example: “In these times when letters and numbers are so far away, there are not many researchers linking the two lines. Kepa Altonaga has united science and culture, literature and scientific research as his own essay.”

I do not consider myself a writer, as I said to him. But actually, there's something wrong with that. The writer, in my opinion, is really the writer who is dedicated to creation, who starts from nothing and materializes a story. To write, I need first of all data, lots of data, historical data, science data, and as I spend more time building history as it gets hilarious. At the starting point, I have stories, the ones I've collected from documents, the nicest part of the work is documentation, and the most creative part, that is, to see which of those stories are going to be the ones I'm going to use for the story, how I'm going to do it. There are the transits, I say many times that meanical, I know how far the story goes, to the sea, but there it goes like a river before reaching the mouth, that work is creative, if there are creatures in it.

Florencio Basaldua (1853-1932) is the main protagonist of the work. The engineer Bilbaíno was convinced of the possibility of creating a New Basque in Patagonia. Another of Hazparne's misionists is Janpierre Arbelbide (1841-1905). It's history, but it's not known.

I sometimes get the impression that we are repeating many things, that is, a lot has been done, but we do not know. Florencio Basaldua's is amazing. In Patagonia, he wants to make a New Basque. And although for some it's amazing, before going there he went through Hazparne, he lived here. “That a billiard has been studying in Hazparne? But how? Where? How?" says people. He's talking about these things that he knows, for example, Piarres Xarriton, and he's telling you. “Yes, at another time Hazparne was filled with students from the south,” he explains. I mean, you start analyzing, you think the relationships were casual, but then you realize there was a kind of network. Within these networks, it's very easy for these two people to be found. Florencio Basaldua and Janpierre Arbelbide worked together. I haven’t got the full “test”, because I haven’t found the two in a photo, but all the indexes show that it was a link.

What conclusions can we draw?

For in the past there have been relations and links in different areas of the North and the South, but for those of the South the North has become an exotic place. However, in the past, it was not an exotic place, neither here nor in Argentina. In Argentina, they were Basques, Basques, not from the North or the South. They spoke in Basque and, as I have shown in the book, in Argentina there were books in Basque, in which they were published in Argentina. It is terrible for me to know that this has existed. There are several editions for Euskaldunes. Many of the Basques in the south did not know Spanish, none of them in the North. The Basques, whether from the North or the South, had to be Spaniards and in Argentina they departed from “I love” to learn.

In the book you say: “Les Basques, a peuple qui s’en va de Elisee Inmate says it all.” We are a people who were leaving, yet we have always wanted to retain it and build it. That's where we go in some way.

We seem to be an Agonic people from the very beginning and in that agony we are. It seems that what our parents lived, we live with our children now that we are parents: “How are the Basques going to be?” we asked. Or we worry “if they are going to go here...”. We Basques have not come to this world to be a normal country. I've looked at the history of Patagonia now, but as you can see in the book, there are things that start from my childhood. As a child, I had an uncle from my American mother, and my father also had siblings in America. I mention hunger, and hunger is not something long ago, hunger has been lived by a generation before us, and from the perspective, our next generation will live hunger again. What you see in this society is not very hopeful. I mean, a lexicon that I learned as a child is covered, it seems buried, but we'll have to use it. For example, the word “Gosekila.” We, as children, used the “gosekilo”.

The diaspora is a place of residence of the Basques. What do you think of the Basque diaspora?

I don't have too much confidence in the diaspora. I spent six months in Nevada (United States) long ago and maybe to make ETB programs it's a subject, but... I'm going to leave a "but." Diagnoses are needed, those are the most important, if the diagnosis is not correct there is no future. In my opinion, the future of Euskal Herria will be decided in this space or in this geography, here.

In our history, however, there have been different intentions. Florencio Basaldua proposed in Patagonia the construction of a new Basque Country, and in some texts by Sabino Arana of the same time – although the current Basque Country did not exist – also proposed the construction of Euskal Herria in Africa and without mystifications about any territoriality. I have not noticed, at least in the texts, the physical accession of Basaldua and Arana to the territory. In the 19th century, the Welsh and the Jews carried out other experiments, that is, some peoples already had some such project, since they had problems in their territories of origin, we have not been the only ones.

Today, Euskal Herria will be here, or nowhere.

Or here we're compacting a critical mass or that toothpick is going to melt, and we just went.

Pessimist…

No. Realistic and optimistic as well. In historicism, there is a thought that brings us to the 16th century, to the time of Leizarraga. The Basque of that time, the then Euskaldunization was complete here, the people were Euskaldun one hundred percent, and therefore “better”. Having said that, we are now better than ever. To think that in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries Basque Country Herria was better is not realistic.

You mentioned the diagnosis, how do you make that diagnosis?

For example, “this people is Euskaldun, we have to build new spaces…” is said. First of all, the Basques do not want to be Euskaldunes. I see it every day when I go to class. They are 20-year-old Euskaldunes, educated in the ikastola from boys and girls, and they do it in Spanish and jealously. No one wants to see it?

Is there no way to change this trend?

I teach the same subject in Basque and Spanish: “What do they come to?” I tell the students. You can choose. Hypothetically, if you want to be in the smoking room, you choose that at the beginning of the course. And he goes to that room. Do not make the “Non-Smoking Room” option and then go to smoking there. That is, if you do it in Spanish, go to the Spanish classroom. As far as I am aware, no one in the UPV (EHU) has analysed or quoted this situation in an official document.

Why does the students make this option?

I don't know. But that's what we need to look at. We have to make a diagnosis or take account of that trend, if we do not live in a fictional situation. Are these students Basque? In the papers, yes. They are not required to study in the Basque classroom, they have a Spanish class. They don't have to be in Basque space. There was a time – a few years ago – when there was an opportunity to wager on quality, but quantity was prioritised. The numbers are there, very bright, but the reality is not bright. Depending on what you live, you can even somatize it. This concern has not officially appeared, but we all know the sad reality.