ROZAS, Ixiar

(Lasarte-Oria, 1972)

"In her short story Korronteak (Currents), Ixiar Rozas looks outside in order to look inside. The short stories in Sartu, korrontea dabil (2001, Come In, There's a Draft) have unusual ties and create a structure almost like that of a novel. We have chosen the first story in this collection, A draft, a current, in which one senses Rozas' humane regard that nonetheless is as cold as a movie camera. This writer who admires John Berger has said many times that she learned to look from English-language writers, learned to see the invisible creatures (immigrants, the ostracized...) that are lost in big cities. The passing glances of characters who don't know each other are captured by a meaningful gesture and recounted in the present, the currents that expand or reduce the gaps between these characters".

(Olaziregi, M.J., "Foreword" in An Anthology of Basque Short Stories, Center for Basque Studies-University of Nevada, Reno, 2004.)


"Even though the love of reading led me to write, when I first began being a reader I never in any way imagined that I would become —that huge word— a writer. It was on the assumption that it would have something to do with letters and with life that I chose to study journalism in Iruņea (Pamplona). On the way, though, real letters and real life made me look to Barcelona. In that city, thanks to a fellowship, I wrote Edo zu edo ni (Either You or I; 2000), my first novel. The poetry collection Patio bat bi itsasoen artean (A Courtyard Between the Two Seas; 2001, Ernestina Champourcin Prize) was also written in Barcelona.

When I returned to the Basque Country, I wrote the young-adult books Yako (2001) and Izurderen bidaia (Dolphin's Voyage; 2001), while writing for grownups the linked stories in the volume Sartu, korrontea dabil (Come In, There's a Draft; 2001). The book begins with "A Draft, a Current," the story that follows. Several of my stories have been anthologized. In the meantime, I've written scripts for television and radio, and two plays, both unpublished. The last work I've published is the young-adult book Yako eta haizea (Yako and the Wind; 2002). Sartu, korrontea dabil recently appeared in Spanish translation, as Luego les separa la noche (2003).

May the reader who takes pleasure in writing take pleasure in what I've written. Place life, existence, in doubt; always holding to the need to look inward, in this society that obliges us to live looking outward".

(Rozas, I., "Biography", in Olaziregi, M.J. (comp.), An Anthology of Basque Short Stories, Center for Basque Studies-University of Nevada, Reno, 2004.)

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