Strange Language – An Anthology of Basque Short Stories

Mari Jose Olaziregi was born in Donostia and holds a PhD in Basque literature. She is a lecturer at the University of the Basque Country (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain). In 1997, Dr. Olaziregi was awarded the Becerro de Bengoa Prize for the essay Bernardo Atxagaren irakurlea (Bernardo Atxaga's Reader). Since 2003, she has been the editor of the Basque Literature in Translation Series at the Center for Basque Studies (University of Nevada, Reno) and the director of the www.basqueliterature.com website.

A compilation of short stories from fourteen of today's best Basque writers, Strange Language provides an insight into modern Basque society and literature. It includes stories by Bernardo Atxaga, Lourdes Onederra, and Iban Zaldua, among others."Literature often flourishes like certain kinds of plants, between the cracks in walls that gardeners have forgotten to tend. It can spring from the oppressed, impoverished, ignored. An Anthology of Basque Short Stories . . . affords a glimpse of one such obscure and interesting literature. . . Curiously, all these stories explore loneliness. There is no indication that this similarity is intentional. Is it a revelation about the lives of contemporary Europeans? These 14 stories offer readers a treat from writers who speak a strange but beautifully expressive language."Mark KurlanskyAuthor of The Basque History of the World