News

According to the Basque Heritage Website euskalkultura.com, the Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga will be participating at the literary festival "PEN World Voices" in New York as a panel member for a conference entitled ''Tendencies in Spanish Language Literature'', which is taking place on Thursday April 30.

The panel discussion will be held in the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute of New York (211-215 East 49th Street). Other panel participants include Javier Calvo, Santiago Roncagliolo and Enrique Vila-Matas. Journalist Barbara Epler will be the panel moderator.

On Friday May 1, Atxaga (Jose Irazu Garmedia) will be taking part at a reading called "Readings from Around the Globe" together with numerous writers including Petina Gappah, Mariken Jongman, Michael Ondaatje, Daniel Seda, Hwang Sok-yong, Antonio Tabucchi and Colm Toibin. The event will take place at the Unterberg Poetry Center (92nd St. Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue).

Bernardo Atxaga was born in Asteasu, Gipuzkoa, in 1951. He is a poet and novelist, and writes both in Basque and in Spanish. He published his first book of poems "Ziutateak" (The Cities) in 1976 and two years later "Etiopía," for which he won the Critic''s Prize. "Obabakoak" was awarded Spain''s National Literature Prize in 1989 and has been translated into more than 20 languages. A movie based on this novel was in cinemas. After residing in Reno (Nevada, US), Bernardo Atxaga has just released "Seven houses in France."