Reviewed by: Introduction to a Postnational History of Contemporary Basque Literature (1978-2000) by Joseba Gabilondo Iker Arranz Gabilondo, Joseba. Introduction to a Postnational History of Contemporary Basque Literature (1978-2000). Tamesis, 2019. 272 pp. ISBN: 978-1-85566-332-9. This monograph by Joseba Gabilondo considers the difficult task of writing a history of contemporary Basque literature from an innovative perspective, where a rigorous historical account and a critical perspective—adding gender/peer scope, along with a strong dose in cultural studies—intersect. Gabilondo wrote this text back in 2006 and this work copes with the standards that a relevant translation—à la Derrida—should meet, adding useful updates in parts of the theoretical apparatus of the author that needed some review. This work is a great asset for scholars that have a particular interest or area of expertise in minor/small literatures, and it perfectly completes (or complements) the author's next work, Before Babel (2010), since the reader acquires some familiarity with the style and theoretical machinery he accustoms to use. While this work focuses on the contribution on the historiographical study of the literary history of Basque literature, it also offers the possibility to engage with broader debates in cultural and gender studies. In this vein, Gabilondo makes clear that his contribution orbits around a postnational approach of the study of the history of Basque literature (27, 29, 30–32). If getting into a such specific debate can be complicated for a novel reader, this adds context and familiarity with the topic for [End Page 152] all kind of readers. The research presented here is not trying to solve the debate but to open new paths to analyze from a critical perspective an intrinsically complex phenomenon instead. For that, Gabilondo brings and analyzes other works that tried the same task, but did not accomplished it. He considers, though, some exceptions that got close enough to the main goal (particularly the work of Ur Apalategi), which is to (re)locate Basque literature as a thing by itself, surrounded by conventional (market, commodity, consumerism) and unconventional (exoticism, nationalism, hyper-particularism) factors alike. The order of the chapters follows this development of the arguments, where the author centers the debate around the national-canonical figure of Bernardo Atxaga, and his major work: Obaba.1 This central argument that situates Atxaga and Obaba in the epicenter of contemporary Basque literature is floating all over the text. Using this structure makes the whole book to gain consistency, since there are many arguments that intermingle: from historical and national obsessions of Basque culture, to a psychoanalytic reading of the displacement of women writers, or the impact of the political conflict and violence in the style of Basque writers. Chapter I, "Postnational Theory and History", presents some theoretical resources that will be useful later, when on Chapter II and III, the book explores the possibility of understanding Basque literature beyond national and/or small/minor literatures' coordinates. Chapter II is specially devoted to the analysis of Bernardo Atxaga's work as a quintessential national allegory for Basque literature. Albeit there exist some works in the field that think otherwise, such as Show me the way Isabel (Sagastizabal, 1994) or Troubled Waters (Epalza, 1991), those are discussed as opposed literary items to the creator of Obaba. It is in Chapter III where Gabilondo takes us to the limits of his own theoretical apparatus, organizing the subsections on memory, exile and gender, in order to find innovative ways of understanding Basque literature's history. In this regard, it becomes specially interesting the reading of Basque women writers, where cultural particularities are intersected with queer theoretical apparatus, which creates an interesting theoretical effect to understand this phenomenon in all its extension. Moreover, the very analysis of a queer-Basque-writer Itxaro Borda—adding her translator facet to the complexity of the figure itself—results particularly brilliant, tied up around the idea of internal mute character, alluding to Spivak's and Herzog approaches to voice and home, respectively. In sum, this monograph can be a great asset to scholars that look for a wider explanation on small/minor literatures that do not fall in reductionism or determinism, and...