Obabakoak
  • Published: 1 February 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099512998
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $50.00

Obabakoak

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Jun 2011
Paperback
1 Feb 2008
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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.

One of only a hundred or so books originally written in the Basque language during the last four centuries, Obabakoak is a shimmering, mercurial novel about life in Obaba, a remote, exotic, Basque village.

Obaba is peopled with innocents and intellectuals, shepherds and schoolchildren, whilst everyone from a lovelorn schoolmistress to a cultured but self-hating dwarf wanders across the page.

Obabakoak is a dazzling collage of stories, town gossip, diary excerpts and literary theory, all held together by Atxaga's distinctive and tenderly ironic voice.
  • Published: 1 February 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099512998
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $50.00
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About the author

Bernardo Atxaga

Bernardo Atxaga was born in Gipuzkoa in Spain in 1951 and lives in the Basque Country, writing in Basque and Spanish. He is a prizewinning novelist and poet, whose books, including Obabakoak and The Accordionist's Son, have won critical acclaim in Spain and abroad. His works have been translated into twenty-five languages.

portrait photo of Bernardo Atxaga

Also by Bernardo Atxaga

Lone Man
Seven Houses in France
The Accordionist's Son
The Lone Woman
See all

Praise for Obabakoak

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

Atxaga holds the attention by his sheer craft, by the complete control he exhibits

Independent

An impressive intellectual achievement

New Statesman

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