00:12 My first book
00:14 and my first known performance
00:19 happened in the same year. In 2007
00:24 my fist book, Aulki bat elurretan, was published,
00:27 and I also sang at the Gipuzkoa championship.
00:30 For me, saying that I’m a writer
00:33 or bertsolari (Basque verse improviser) is a commitment.
00:36 A commitment to my work,
00:38 to be the best writer possible
00:41 and the best bertsolari possible,
00:44 although in recent years
00:46 I’ve been much more focused on writing.
00:53 Writing has always been important to me,
00:55 from a young age.
00:57 I made a bigger effort than in other areas,
01:00 I gave it a lot of thought and wasn’t easily pleased.
01:02 I tried to perfect my texts
01:05 regarding precision, beauty,
01:10 point of view…
01:13 I continuously perfected and improved them.
01:17 And I’ve continued along that path.
01:22 I think someone who writes
01:24 can draw from many sources,
01:26 but for example I very much like
01:29 to explore memory,
01:31 explore ancient landscapes,
01:35 focus on the dynamics between people…
01:40 And through that, suddenly, without knowing how,
01:44 something happens
01:46 and you can visualise a story’s shape.
01:51 You can spend years or months taking notes
01:55 almost aimlessly,
01:58 and suddenly you realise that everything is taking shape
02:01 and you can visualise what you wanted to tell.
02:03 Then you become aware that if you hadn’t done
02:06 that prior work, that moment wouldn’t have arrived.
02:08 When people ask me “and what are you doing now?”,
02:11 the question always catches me off guard.
02:14 Sometimes the answer at that moment is “I don’t really know,
02:17 I’m searching and compiling…
02:21 trying something out”.
02:28 For me, literature or art,
02:30 any type of art,
02:33 is a preparation, a transformation.
02:37 We often use our experiences,
02:40 what we’ve seen, what we’ve thought…
02:43 But it’s always an artifact.
02:44 In other words, when I write a text,
02:47 I have a clear idea that I’m looking for
02:49 something autonomous
02:52 that contains within itself a mechanism
02:55 that makes it work.
02:57 When you’re creating, when you're working
02:59 and finding new logics,
03:03 you're looking for an aesthetic,
03:06 a rhythm or pulse.
03:10 I think each story
03:12 asks you to design its own mechanism.
03:15 Someone who has written a novel doesn’t know how to write novels,
03:18 someone who has written a story doesn’t know how to write stories.
03:21 I mean
03:22 that each story requires you to create
03:25 a new machinery
03:26 to be able to tell that story.
03:32 A long time ago I was told
03:33 that you can’t be a good bertsolari
03:34 without singing the odd bad verse,
03:36 and it's true.
03:38 But it's still something we struggle with.
03:40 Even now
03:41 I still give myself a score at the end of each performance,
03:46 and back at home
03:48 I often berate myself and say
03:51 “Hmm, people came to listen to us and I had nothing to say,
03:54 I contributed nothing”.
03:56 That feeling is frustrating,
03:59 but it’s also a great opportunity,
04:03 because I think that in this life many of us
04:05 demand a lot of ourselves.
04:08 We’re continuously evaluating what we do,
04:11 so for me bertsolaritza or improvising verses
04:13 is a game, but also training
04:16 to tell myself
04:19 that I have to be very demanding of myself in my work.
04:22 That's the commitment I mentioned earlier.
04:25 I tell myself I have to work, think, learn and be alert.
04:31 However, as for the result,
04:35 I have to learn to be flexible.
04:36 We would always like to do things well
04:39 and for everything to go smoothly,
04:41 but life doesn’t work like that.
04:42 Life is neither fair, nor logical,
04:45 nor is it what you want it to be.
04:47 That's why, for me, being a bertsolari is training to tell myself
04:54 “work, fall down and get up quick”.
05:02 Spaces are essential
05:06 to create, to light fires.
05:09 I think what’s most important is
05:12 that people are active
05:15 to keep all those small fires alight.
05:16 For example, I think it's a big shame
05:19 that bookshops are disappearing.
05:21 That's why I say
05:23 that places like this are important,
05:26 but I think that a space like this
05:29 doesn’t replace fifteen bookshops
05:33 where year after year
05:35 readers are recommended books to read,
05:39 they're informed about novelties…
05:41 Those bookshops are what,
05:44 through dealing with normal people,
05:50 with the public, on a daily basis, pump the blood so to speak
05:53 of the arteries that make up culture.
05:56 I think that that balance is necessary.
05:59 Both things are necessary, and one doesn’t replace the other,
06:03 but in my opinion we don’t pay enough attention
06:07 to other spaces, lives and people that maybe aren't as glamorous.
06:18 I have had dealings with Etxepare Institutua.
06:22 thanks to them I was able to go to Greece for the first time,
06:28 to the book fair in Thessaloniki.
06:31 I’d say that was the first time I left the Basque Country
06:39 to do something related to literature.
06:41 Depending on how people see us, it might seem
06:46 that that is our lifestyle, but nothing further from the truth.
06:50 It's something totally exceptional
06:54 that gives you the chance to see
06:56 other literary systems and other fairs.
06:59 When you go abroad and see
07:03 what other people dedicated to writing talk about and how,
07:07 in particular those who write in hegemonic languages,
07:10 you realise that
07:13 the conversations we have are similar;
07:16 they’re not in another sphere or another world,
07:21 we’re in the same trade.
07:25 I think we're not so far apart as regards our activity.
07:28 Another very different thing is the resources we have,
07:33 what it’s like to write in a minority language,
07:39 the state of our ecosystem or network,
07:42 how far we can reach and where we can’t…
07:45 What's clear is that the future lies in our language.
07:48 In other words, if our language isn’t in good health,
07:51 the literature,
07:53 the bertsolaritza
07:55 or all the other arts that are made in Basque
07:58 won’t be either.
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