Atxaga masterfully weaves the passionate stories of the inhabitants of Obaba-the geography professor recalling his strange love affair with a woman he only knows through letters, the young teacher learning to ward off loneliness throughout a long, cold winter, the writer turning his life around with the discovery of an astonishing detail in an enlarged old photo school. A celebration of the power of books that transport us to unknown places and rescue us from a life of solitude, this novel brims with humor, irony, magic, and mystery. Description in Spanish: Obabakoak reune las apasionantes historias de los habitantes del territorio de Obaba: el profesor de geografia que recuerda su extrana relacion amorosa con una chica que solo conoce por sus cartas, la joven maestra que tiene que aprender a combatir la soledad a lo largo de un frio invierno, la relacion de un canonigo con un nino perdido en el bosque, el escritor que da un giro a su vida cuando descubre un detalle asombroso en la ampliacion de una vieja foto de la escuela... Bernardo Atxaga hila con maestria todas estas historias para celebrar el poder de la palabra: las viejas cartas donde se consignan los secretos y las confesiones mas intimas, los recuerdos, los libros que nos llevan a otros lugares y que nos tienden una mano para rescatarnos de la soledad.

Ababakoak

Literature & Fiction

ATXAGA, BERNARDO

Literary

RANDOM HOUSE UK

The Accordionist's Son

Taking us from 1936 to 1999, The Accordionist’s Son, heralded by the Times Literary Supplement as “the first great Basque novel,” is a beautiful and gripping tale of a town, a family, an incredible friendship and a people whose culture is slowly dying.From the Hardcover edition.

Vintage Books

The most famous novel by Spain’s premier Basque novelist, re-jacketed for a whole new set of readers. Obabakoak is a novel composed of twenty-six linked tales and parodies.

Obabakoak

Contemporary

Seven Houses in France

The year is 1903, and Captain Lalande Biran, overseeing a garrison on the banks of the Congo, has an ambition: to amass a fortune and return to the literary cafés of Paris. His glamorous wife Christine has a further ambition: to own seven houses in France, a house for every year he has been abroad. At the Captain's side are an ex-legionnaire womaniser, and a servile, treacherous man who dreams of running a brothel. At their hands the jungle is transformed into a wild circus of human ambition and absurdity. But everything changes with the arrival of a new officer and brilliant marksman: the enigmatic Chrysostome Liège.

This novel is in the form of linked stories. The village is the place where stories from many cultures weave in and out of peoples' lives, and where simple events stay in the mind of the reader. When the existence of the village is threatened, the preservation of memories becomes vital.

Random House Value Publishing

A unique and stunning international literary event: winner of Spain's National Prize for Literature, Obabakoak, a work of fiction, is one of only several hundred books to be written in four centuries in Basque, a language understood by few (the author himself had to translate his book into Spanish to broaden its appeal throughout Europe, where it has been published to ecstatic acclaim). Obabakoak means "the people and things of Obaba (a Basque village)," and the narrator weaves a tale reminiscent of Scheherazade's. The village is peopled with rascals, innocents, intellectuals, shepherds, hunters, idiots, and creatures of superstition, and the interconnection of their private worlds is brilliantly evoked. Parody, riddles, texts within texts abound in a book that is playful yet always tinged with melancholy. Possessed of the timelessness of the fairy tale and informed by the lore of the oral tradition - and offering a good-humored spin through metaliterature and intertextuality - Obabakoak is a multi-faceted and rousing celebration of the art of storytelling.

OBABAKOAK: A Novel

Pantheon

Tells the story of the people of Obaba, a remote Basque village

Obabakoak: A Novel

Vintage

A seductive, unclassifiable blend of autobiography and fiction set in Reno, from the preeminent Basque authorNine months as a writer in residence can prove unnerving for anyone. For Bernardo Atxaga, newly arrived with his wife and two daughters, research at the Center for Basque Studies in Reno, Nevada, is anything but straightforward. The neon lights and harsh, windswept desert appear full of ominous signs: A raccoon that watches the house at night, eyes glowing. A series of sexual assaults on campus by an unknown assailant. A spider scuttling endlessly in a glass jar kept by a colleague. And the kidnapping and murder of a young college girl in the house next door.Fragments of the Basque diaspora appear everywhere: A photo of the heavyweight boxer Paulino Uzcudun, who fought Max Baer in the 1930s. The funeral of a Basque sheepherder. Daily life also turns up some unusual characters―a university friend suspected of involvement in the assaults on campus, a friend who takes Atxaga for long drives in the desert where The Misfits was filmed, and cowboys at a Tex-Mex joint.Nevada Days, told in a series of diary-like entries, mixes a constellation of lively incidents in Reno with memories from Atxaga’s childhood. The routines of everyday life are the only way to resolve the deep wounds of history and relationships, however fleeting or enduring. Trapped in the deeply alien landscape of Nevada, Atxaga weaves together past and present to see the West from a refreshing, if also ominous and unsettling, vantage.

Nevada Days (MacLehose Press Editions)

Travel

MacLehose Press

A celebrated international author, listed among the "21 top writers for the 21st century" (The Observer, U.K.)
As David Imaz, on the threshold of adulthood, divides his time between his uncle Juan's ranch and his life in the village, where he reluctantly practices the accordion, a tradition that his authoritarian father insists he continue, he becomes increasingly aware of the long shadow cast by the Spanish Civil War. 
Letters found in a hotel attic, along with a silver pistol, lead David to unravel the story of the conflict, including his father's association with the fascists, and the opposition of his uncle, who took considerable risks in helping to hide a wanted republican. With affection and lucidity, Bernardo Atxaga describes the evolution of a young man caught between country and town, between his uncle the horse-breeder and his political father. The course of David's life changes one summer night when he agrees to shelter a group of students on the run from the military police. 
This is the most accomplished novel to date by an internationally celebrated writer. The Accordionist's Son is memorable for its epic scope―from 1936 to 1999―and the details with which it sparkles in gorgeous prose. It is easy to understand why The Observer listed Atxaga as one of the top twenty-one writers for the twenty-first century.

The Accordionist's Son: A Novel (Lannan Translation Selection (Graywolf Hardcover))

United States

Graywolf Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ATXAGA, BERNARDO. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by ATXAGA, BERNARDO

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ATXAGA, BERNARDO. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ababakoak

The Accordionist's Son

Obabakoak

Seven Houses in France

Obabakoak

Obabakoak

OBABAKOAK: A Novel

Obabakoak: A Novel

Nevada Days (MacLehose Press Editions)

The Accordionist's Son: A Novel (Lannan Translation Selection (Graywolf Hardcover))