Winter also has summer: at least this year yes. We will still have to wait for the fig trees to bear fruit, but the bare branches begin to flourish. Winter also has it since summer, and this is how this year the book of poems Uda Bet (Elkar, 2022) by Aritz Gorrotxategi (Donostia, 1975) has arrived. This last work is his fifth in poetry.
He had already invited us to board Gorrotxategi, and in this collection he also asks us to travel to the coasts, retrieving or renovating the images he already has raised: yarns and horses, whales and stones. Poems lead us to Lisbon, to the corners of Brittany, to the Seine and Yangzi rivers, to the exiles and residences of Colliour, and to others nearby. The isolated waters produce echoes from the reader.
The tidal cycle destroys and devours the area during the high tide, but uncovers unknown and wet desert depths during the low tide. The opposite and the reverse, the two sides of the one. Tidal fluctuations thus reflect the relationship between life and death: “The boat will sink / not think about it. / Before or after / will reach the arena / will touch the rock and / or the littoral hugged. / We don't know where, we don't know when. That’s what we defend.” Mortal creatures are vulnerable to the immortality of the sea, but the poet tells us that there is something to buy from the spirit of life.
The collection is dead of references and recognition. The conversations proposed with poets and other artists lead even to the overcoming of the book: they lead the reader to other letters and pages, even to melodies and images. Battiato’s voice, transversally from Sosa, reminds us live of Matisse’s transverse colors and fences, the folds built by Chillida. Therein lies precisely the strength of art and literature: the works that in fact have no life in front of these receptors are revived, as evidenced by the poem The Principle of Archimedes.
Snarka Lewis Carroll
Hunting
Images:
Translation and Edition of Henry Holiday:Manu LÓpez Gaseni
Pamiela, 2024
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The work we have before us was published in the spring. After the works of Alice in Wonderland,... [+]
Lighting
Miriam Luki
Susa, 2023
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Translations
Miren Agur Meabe
Elkar, 2023
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Last year, Miren Agur Meabe published the novel Itzulerak. As the main characters are young people, we could say that it is juvenile literature, but when literature is good, it is for... [+]
Text:
Ilan Brenman
Illustrations: Guilherme Karsten
translation: In Alkain
Denonartean, 2024
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At the end of this album is a quote from Benjamin Franklin: “There has never been a good war, nor a bad peace.” And... [+]
Pozo
Goiatz Labandibar
Erein, 2024
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The Pozo de Goiatz Labandibarren is a growth novel that takes place one day: the descent of menstruation. Or in other words, a hero's journey, why not.
As often happens in this... [+]
Sorry as if there were no
Mariana Travacio
Erein, 2024
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Although the title may seem like a self-help book, this is a Western text that Erein has published in the narrative section. In the excellent translation of... [+]
Josefa, neskame
Alaitz Melgar Agirre
Elkar, 2022
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Josefa Agirre Etxeberria was one of the women who was raised during the Franco regime. After being exiled at the age of fourteen, he was forced to change his residence... [+]
In the maze of
the theatre I Ander
Lipus EHAZE and Susa
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Playwright Ander Lipus has published with EHAZE and Susa his publications on theatrical autobiography and theatre. In the maze of theatre I. Notebook of Bitácora and... [+]
-It was an ordinary afternoon. For anglerfish.” This evening is what Maite Mutuberria tells us in this album. The book has very few texts and the images tell us very well the development of history.
From the beginning we can see in the illustrations a large and quiet... [+]
The one who approaches this book, first of all, will be with G. It meets the images of Mabire. They are comic style images, very accurate strokes and celestial experiences that help to easily interpret characters and situations. These images coincide with the text, which is... [+]
For a matter of work, I had to reread this wonderful book. A short book that brings together feminist theory, genealogy and history, and that will surely have a lot of criticism looking on the net and, surprise! I found one, which Irati Majuelo wrote in Berria.El book published... [+]
The book just published by the editorial Consonni has been a great surprise to the public. I did not know the work of Montserrat Roig and the finding has been truly surprising. On the one hand, because the novel was first published in a little more than the death of Franco (in... [+]
The report of a Basque cow was published by Bernardo Atxaga in 1991. The book has had a long history and success in both Basque and other languages. One of Germany's best-selling books was J. The British editor Eccleshare considered it a work to be read in the early years in... [+]
Spring is usually a promise of a cold winter nose that can come after the landing, and has been annotated several times for sleep. Promise, however, is never a safe spring in a ruined terrain. Not at least if we are talking about change or, in particular, revolution. Maddi... [+]