Obabakoak: A Novel - Hardcover

Atxaga, Bernardo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679424040 ISBN 13: 9780679424048

Publisher: Pantheon Books, 1993

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"A fine, shimmering, mercurial novel" (Observer)

"A brilliantly inventive writer...He understands the nature of story telling and is at once terribly moving and wildly funny" (A. S. Byatt)

"An impressive intellectual achievement" (New Statesman)

"Atxaga holds the attention by his sheer craft, by the complete control he exhibits" (Independent)

"This English version beautifully retains Mr. Atxaga's magically flowing and seemingly simple style... an achievement not made easy by his considerable technical and linguistic virtuosity and his love of inventing ways to make language itself speak with new voices" (New York Times Book Review)

Book Description:

A sprawling carnivalesque set in an eccentric village, this is a wildly unusual novel, originally written in Basque, from one of the most exciting talents in contemporary European literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0679424040
• ISBN 13: 9780679424048
• Binding: Hardcover