Bernardo Atxaga
(Asteasu, Gipuzkoa, 1951) a graduate in Economics from the University of Sarriko (UPV/EHU), he held various jobs until he was able to fully devote himself to literature in the early 1980s. He is the author of novels, poetry, plays, essays and children’s literature; all his work is written in Basque and translated into Spanish, in many cases by himself. His books include ‘Obabakoak’ (1989, winner of the Euskadi Prize and National Narrative Prize), ‘El hijo del acordeonista’ (2004), ‘Siete casas en Francia’ (2009) and ‘Días de Nevada’ (20133, winner of the Euskadi Prize). His work can be read in more than thirty languages and has been adapted for the cinema, among others, by Montxo Armendariz (‘Obaba’, 2005). He is a member of Euskaltzaindia and editor of Erlea, the institution’s cultural magazine. In 2019, Atxaga was awarded the Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas for his “fundamental contribution to the modernisation and international projection of the Basque and Spanish languages”.