The Basque Literary System

Mari Jose Olaziregi ©

(in Waking the Hedgehog. The Literary Universe of Bernardo Atxaga, Center for Basque Studies - University of Nevada, Reno, 2005). Translated From Basque by Amaia Gabantxo.

The polysystem theory developed by Itamar Even-Zohar from the University of Tel Aviv offers interesting methodological tools for studying the many different literatures around the world. Going beyond the limits of formalist approximations, polysystem theory defines literature as a socio-cultural system, and studies the variables of literary communication. For Even-Zohar, the notion of a "system" demands a definition of "literary activity" and a specification of the relations between the people who take part in it.

Along similar lines, when talking about the Basque literary system, I should make clear that I am referring to a structure comprising the production, mediation, reception and recreation (re-writing) of Basque literary texts. Within this structure, the contribution of critics, for example, would fall within the category of mediation (note that these are Even-Zohar's terms).

Regarding the field of production, it is a well-known fact that Basque autonomous literary activity became institutionalized in the 50s, and that the legal conditions for its development only came about after Franco's death, i.e., after the period known as the Transition to Democracy. The Decree on Bilingualism (1982), promulgated on approval of the Estatuto de Autonomía (Autonomy Statute - 1979), injected new life into Basque literary production. This new situation, together with the subsidies granted then (and now) to publications, led to the creation of new publishing houses. This all left its mark on the production of books in the Basque language, which is obvious from the resulting figures: whereas between 1876 and 1975 31.5 books were published each year, in the period 1976-1994 this number rose to 659.2. In 1999, 1,523 books were published, of which, according to UNESCO's classification, 13.1% were literary works, 23% were literary works for children and young people, and 33.8% were textbooks. However, it is particularly interesting to note that this percentage has dropped over recent years, and is now comparable to the publication percentages of France and Spain. But what has not changed is the predominance of narrative over all other genres. According to the latest figures, 59.3% of all literature published falls into the narrative genre. 11% is poetry and 7% is drama. There are no figures for the volumes on literary criticism over the last few years; the latest figures date back to the period 1976-1994. In those years only 4% of literary publications were works of literary criticism.

As regards the situation in publishing houses, the most recent study commissioned by the Gremio de Editores de Euskadi (Basque Publishers' Association, 1999) states that there are currently 100 publishing houses, 35% of which were created after 1990. I should clarify that these are generally small publishers, with an average of 4 employees, and that their promotional capabilities are worlds apart from those of the big publishers in neighbouring Spain and France. Here are a few details that emerge from the study: almost half of all publications are sold through bookshops and other kinds of modern sales outlets (mail purchase, door-to-door, the Internet, large supermarkets), which tend not to be so successful in the Basque Country. Today most Basque publishers find it hard to make ends meet, which is probably the reason behind the reduced investment in promotion and advertising over recent years.

To conclude the outline of production I would like to offer a few details about the writers. Presently some 300 writers write in the Basque language; in sociological terms, the gender balance is as follows: 90% of them are men and only 10% are women. The average age of the Basque writer is 49 (though 70% of all authors fall within the 30-50 age group), which shows that contemporary, active authors belong to many different generations. Examples of this are the writers born in the 20s and 30s (Txillardegi et al.); those who belong to the '64 Generation (authors such as Saizarbitoria, Lertxundi, Urkizu, and Urretabizkaia); those who are part of what is now known as "the Literary Autonomy Generation", which comprises authors born after 1950 (Atxaga, Iturralde, Sarrionandia, Jimenez, Mintegi, Oñederra, Landa, and so on); and the generation of authors born in the 1960s who started publishing in the 80s (Aristi, Zabala, Xabier Mendiguren, Epaltza, Borda et al.). 60% of these writers have university degrees, and only 6% make a living from writing. Also, it is interesting to keep in mind that most Basque writers work as teachers too.

A fact that stands out among all this information is the scarcity of women writers. One reason for this may be the scant promotional attention to which they have been subjected for years. As in most western literary traditions, the Basque literary institutions have regularly turned their backs on women's literary production. Women writers have been neglected at different moments in the history of Basque literature (a subject thoroughly examined in Professor Linda White's doctoral thesis), rarely win literary competitions and are largely absent from the textbooks. It is clear that female writers still have to overcome many hurdles before becoming fully functioning members of the literary market. Chief among these obstacles is the temptation to tar all writing by women with the same brush: for example, the tendency to speak of it not just as "literature", but as "literature written by women" (which of course also occurs in criticism in other parts of the world), and the overuse of the term "intimist" when referring to works by women.

To round off this section on writers in euskara, I would like to make reference to the influence of the literary platforms that emerged in the 1980s on the rise in the number of writers. I believe that these platforms somehow succeeded in repairing the weaknesses of the Basque literary scene since, as I have mentioned before, at that time neither university degrees nor schooling in Basque were consolidated. The same phenomena that brought about the Basque literary Renaissance in the period 1876-1936 (remember that more than 140 publications -journals, magazines, etc.- saw the light during those years), happened again in the 1980s. A large number of remarkable literary publications (Pott, Oh! Euzkadi, Susa, Idatz eta Mintz, Maiatz, Kandela, etc.) went on to become essential platforms for the new generations of writers.

These were years that saw an increase in the number of organizations defending the rights of authors and translators. In 1982, Euskal Idazleen Elkartea, or EIE (the Basque Writers Association), was created, and in 1987 Euskal Itzultzaile, Zuzentzaile eta Interpreteen Elkartea, or EIZIE (the Basque Translators, Editors and Interpreters Association), would follow. I should also mention the Martutene School of Translators, which was created in 1980 on the initiative of Euskaltzaindia (the Basque Academy of Letters), and the postgraduate Masters Degree in Translation Studies offered by Deusto University and the University of the Basque Country since the 1990s. This process of recognition and consolidation was extremely important to the realization of a specific objective: the creation of a degree in Translation and Interpreting at the University of the Basque Country. There is no doubt that Basque translators have had an invigorating and enriching effect on the literary tradition. The literary horizon of Basque readers has been considerably widened by the addition of books by Lermontov, Woolf, Joyce, Stevenson or Primo Levi, among many others, to the list of publications in euskara. However, this legacy of Basque translation has not yet received the attention it deserves from Basque critics. If we were to analyze the situation in terms of Even-Zohar's formulation, we would have to assert that translations, literature for children and young people, and literature written by women are marginal or at least peripheral areas in the Basque literary system.

Next, I would like to take a look at literary reception, since this is precisely the weakest point in the Basque literary system. Despite the multiplying number of Basque publishing houses and the fact that the increase in printed copies suggests a growing number of readers, the sociological profile of the Basque reader is still unknown. Although we lack in-depth, up-to-date research, the different studies carried out on different groups of readers of works in euskara give us a partial diagnosis of today's situation. I would like to briefly refer to two of them; one which I prepared for my doctoral thesis -in which I analyzed 3,000 young, bilingual Basque speakers- and the study carried out in 1996 by SIADECO for the Egunkaria newspaper. Two very important details emerge from these studies: on the one hand, the habit of reading in Basque is lost with age, and this is thought to be related to the fact that readers identify reading in Basque with the educational sphere. On the other hand, literate Basque speakers of between 20 and 39 years of age tend not to be great readers (36% of them do not even read one Basque book a year). Although it might come as something of a surprise, the results of the survey carried out in November 1999 by the Gremio de Editores de Euskadi (Basque Publishers Association) were similar to those obtained four years previously in the survey I carried out among students. The favorite titles among the over-16s were: The Pillars of the Earth, The Physician, A Hundred Years of Solitude, The Lord of the Rings, The House of Spirits and Paula. Bernardo Atxaga was the Basque author mentioned most often (29 times) and his book Obabakoak was also quoted more times than any others (11).

It would seem that, despite the fact that the Bilingual Decree encouraged the development of 100,000 new Basque speakers in Euskadi, this increase produced fewer readers than expected. It would seem, on the one hand, that many of the young people who have studied in Basque have not acquired a love of reading in this language and, on the other, that the Basque literary market is still too strongly related to the teaching world. Most of the Basque books which are considered bestsellers are closely linked to school programs, and the many failed attempts at publishing a series of pocketbooks, for example, highlight the limits of the Basque literary market (for a not-very-well-known author to sell 1,000 copies of a book would be an extraordinary feat). I need to specify here what volume of sales I am referring to when I talk about bestsellers. Taking into account the fact that the Basque speaking population is 700,000, and that, according to different studies carried out, the number of potential readers is 60,000, it is obvious that the sales figures given here are extremely high. The author who has sold most books is unquestionably Bernardo Atxaga. Some of his titles, such as Obabakoak, Bi letter jaso nituen oso denbora gutxian ("Two Letters All at Once") or Behi euskaldun baten memoriak ("Memoirs of a Basque Cow"), had sold 50,000 copies by 1997. These titles are followed by others like Irigoien's Babilonia, Aristi's Kcappo, or the famous 110 Streeteko geltokia ("The Stop in 110 Street") by Iñaki Zabaleta, all of which had sold over 30,000 copies.

To round off this brief picture of the Basque literary system, I would now like to mention the middlemen. We cannot ignore a figure that has only recently emerged: the literary agent. This figure, well known in the literatures of other languages, is completely new to our language. The first Basque agency (Ikeder) was created in 1995 in Bilbao, in the Spanish part of the Basque Country. But the fact is that very few writers have recourse to agents, since they can easily take care of their own business in the small world of Basque literature -they only need an agent if, for example, their work is translated into other languages. As well as literary agents, there are also other elements with a potential influence on the promotion of literary works, such as the yearly Durango Bookfair, where 300,000 people gather every year to find out about new Basque publications, or literary awards, which have actually decreased in number since the 1980s. The importance of literary awards is unquestionable as far as the promotion of writers is concerned (the case of Atxaga is paradigmatic in this sense), although in today's literary market it is probably more important to have one's work mentioned in the media than it is to win an award. The dynamic effect that newspaper supplements on Basque culture have had on the literary world should also be noted. Although it is true that television programs dedicated to literature are still few and far between (the program Sautrela started in the year 2000 and, though it is a good program, its broadcasting time is unfortunate), newspapers and the radio programs tend to give quite detailed information on new publications.

And that is precisely the root of the problem: most of the time these programs only provide information. One of the biggest shortcomings in the Basque literary world is the lack of proper criticism. It should be noted that no contemporary Basque authors have complained about this lack of criticism. But the reason is not a lack of critics -there are plenty of them- the problem is, rather, that these critics mostly stop short of anything more than giving a few descriptive details about the books. The problem is the absence of real criticism. It remains to be seen who is ready to accept and to give real criticism in such a small country where everyone knows everyone else.

In my opinion, one particularly illustrative aspect in the list of the shortcomings of Basque criticism is echoed by Frye. According to Frye, a distinction should be made between academic criticism and public criticism. Academic criticism is based mainly on a set of theoretical or methodological paradigms, and assumes a critical reasoning and distance; public criticism, on the other hand, can be said to consist of the comments, reviews, interviews, etc., published in the media or in specialized journals. The main objective of public criticism is to inform, and to promote certain works. Although it is true that the two kinds of criticism do not exactly have to function hand in hand, in the Basque case the rift between them is tremendous. It is currently very rare to find comments in any of the Basque newspapers or journals that are more than simply informative. Some Basque writers do complain about this, though, because after the first interview, review or mention, most of the work goes unnoticed. It is significant that the author who for years enjoyed the best reputation as far as the Basque literary institution was concerned was a philologist, the renowned Koldo Mitxelena (1915-1987).

Whatever the reasons, one thing that has become more obvious over the last few years is the explosive development of academic criticism, which is a direct consequence of the many Basque philology departments that emerged in the 1980s. In 1981, the first twenty students ever received Basque Philology degrees from Deusto University (the same would happen again a few years later in the University of the Basque Country). That same year, under the direction of Jean Haritschelhar, the Basque Studies Department was created at the University of Bordeaux III (South West France). In August 1980, the first Basque Language and Literature teaching posts were created at schools all over Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia. And it is precisely the students who have graduated from these departments who have managed to inject Basque criticism with the energy and modernity it had been lacking. I would also like to underline at this point the remarkable increase in the number of women researchers who have completed doctoral theses in the field of Basque Philology over the last few decades.

The Basque literary system described above has more than one weakness. The lack of a culture of reading for pleasure is one of them. As I have stressed, the reception aspect is still the weakest part of our literary system. That is, the reading of literature is still too closely related to teaching; people do not read in Basque simply for pleasure, but for a number of practical reasons (to improve their level of Basque, to pass exams, and so on). Although research into the neighboring literatures of France and Spain also shows that the reader-book relationship there is not exactly passionate, our problem is more serious. As demonstrated by a series of researchers (including Schüking, Escarpit and Blanchot), the love of reading never springs solely from the school environment. It is time the Basques became a people who read for the simple pleasure of doing so. I would like to recall here the words of Thomas a Kempis in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose: "I looked for pleasure in all things, but found it only in a book". For this to really happen once and for all we need to eradicate obsolete and pernicious educational models and the stifling books that hinder the development of a love of literary language (including texts that have earned awards). Although we have to deal with diglossia in the Basque language, Basque literature has to break away from the usual romantic notions: language is not the soul of a people - but then, neither is literature.

I would like to conclude this short description of the Basque literary system by underlining other weak cog in the Basque literary machine, namely the small number of works that are translated into other languages. Among the 60 titles that have been translated into other languages, Bernardo Atxaga's stand out. His books have been translated into more languages than those of any other author (Obabakoak is available in 25 different languages), and have brought the author more success and recognition than anyone else. Despite our fine publishing industry, media and academic system, Basque literature runs the risk of giving the impression that it is not endeavoring to widen its readership. Works in the Basque language do not require translation in order to obtain a "label of quality" or to obtain approval as the equivalent of our neighbors' literary production; they need it because translation is hugely important to minority languages.

The Basque Literary System

SUGGESTED READING: