A Basque Chronicle of Nine Months in the New West: Bernardo Atxaga's Nevada Days

Abstract

A Basque Chronicle of Nine Months in the New WestBernardo Atxaga's Nevada Days David Rio (bio) Basque Literature and the American West The appeal of the American West in contemporary European literature can be regarded as the result of a recurrent transnational process of cultural exchange; this is not limited to major European literatures but also affects writers in minority languages, as exemplified by Basque literature. About 850,000 Basque speakers live on either side of the Pyrenees in Spain and France. The Basque language, or Euskara, is the only non-Indo-European language in Western Europe. Despite its repression during the Franco era (1939-75), the revitalization of this language is evident, as illustrated both by the growing number of speakers, at least south of the Pyrenees, and by its increasing presence on digital media and social networks. For example, Basque is the most tweeted minority language, according to Indigenous Tweets.1 This contrast between its global projection and its minority status has led Manuel Castells to define the Basque culture as "a small 'glocal' neighborhood" (qtd. in Alonso and Arzoz 11). Basque literature also enjoys good health in terms of both its quantity and its quality, though the number of readers is still quite limited (Zabala). Certainly, Basque literature has a rich oral tradition, particularly in the field of popular poetry (it has a long-established tradition of improvised poetry, or bertsolaritza), and the first book published in Basque can be traced back to 1545 (Bernat Etxepare's Linguae Vasconum Primitiae). However, it is also true that Basque literature achieved international visibility only in 1989 with the publication of Bernardo Atxaga's Obabakoak [Obabakoak: A Novel, 1992], [End Page 175] a book already translated into more than twenty-five languages (Olaziregi, "Introduction" 13). Atxaga, the leading Basque author of his generation, is also one of the first contemporary Basque authors to have used the American West as a prominent trope in his writings, as exemplified by books such as Bi letter jaso nituen oso denbora gutxian (originally published in 1984, its English translation was published in 2008 as "Two Letters All at Once" in a volume called Two Basque Stories), Soinujolearen semea (published in Basque in 2003 and translated into English as The Accordionist's Son in 2007), and Nevadako egunak (2006), awarded the prestigious Euskadi Prize for Literature in the Basque Country in 2007 and published in English as Nevada Days in 2017.2 This article focuses on Nevada Days as one of the most interesting examples of the transcontinental condition of the trope of the American West in contemporary literature, exploring both how Atxaga revises traditional Western imagery and his introduction of new cultural constructions of Western experiences. This fascinating fictionalized memoir illustrates the power literature has to reconcile the local and the global through an "unbounded regionalism" (Kollin 517) and exemplifies the new dimension of archetypal motifs, settings, and themes when integrated into a different literary tradition. The United States was for a long time neglected in Basque-language literature. In spite of the important role played by the Basques in the early Spanish exploration and administration of both North and South America, representation of the American continent in Basque literature was often biased because the idea that emigration somehow amounted to treason against the motherland pervaded most of these stories. As Mari Jose Olaziregi stated, "Although the Americas were represented in different genres of Basque literature from the nineteenth century onward, it was not until the 1960s that this representation ceased to be merely a reflection of the nationalist imagination's love for the motherland" ("Representations" 117). Although the presence of Basques notably increased in the North American West after the Gold Rush and Basque immigrants soon found their distinctive occupation as sheepherders, the literary neglect of the Basque role in the Americas [End Page 176] continued throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Even if we turn to Basque literature written in English during that period, we find very few examples of Basque American authors writing about the experience of these immigrants in the American West. The most notable exception is Mirim Isasi, who lived in exile in the States...