Kirmen Uribe

Kirmen Uribe (1970) is a Basque writer who is considered an important voice of his generation not only in the Basque Country but all of Spain. His first collection of poems Bitartean heldu eskutik (Meanwhile Take My Hand), published in 2001, was called “a quiet revolution” in Basque literature. His first novel Bilbao-New York-Bilbao (2008) is a fragmented firework of different forms, set during a seven-hour flight from Bilbao to New York. Sitting on the plane allows the author to contemplate his homeland, family, generation and, at the background, himself. This breakthrough was followed by his 2012 novel Mussche. Its title character, a Belgian author named Robert Mussche takes in one of the 19 000 Basque children exiled after the bombing of Guernica. The Spanish Civil War also features in Uribe’s novel Elkarrekin esnatzeko ordua (The Hour of Waking Together), published in 2016. Kirmen Uribe will talk to Eneko Erauzkin, the communications manager of the association Kaixo Estonia that promotes Estonian and Basque cooperation.