Book description
One of only a hundred or so books originally written in the Basque
language during the last four centuries, Obabakoak is a
shimmering, mercurial novel about life in Obaba, a remote, exotic,
Basque village.
Obaba is peopled with innocents and intellectuals, shepherds and
schoolchildren, whilst everyone from a lovelorn schoolmistress to a
cultured but self-hating dwarf wanders across the page.
Obabakoak is a dazzling collage of stories, town gossip,
diary excerpts and literary theory, all held together by Atxaga's
distinctive and tenderly ironic voice.
Bernardo Atxaga was born in Gipuzkoa in Spain in 1951 and lives in
the Basque Country, writing in Basque and Spanish. He is a prizewinning
novelist and poet, whose books, including
The Accordionist's Son
and
Seven Houses in France
, have won critical acclaim in Spain and abroad. His works have been
translated into twenty-two languages.
