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Godella, Spain.  The presentation of the anthology Estellés Euskaraz took place last Sunday at the Capitoli Theater in the Valencian city of Godella with participation of the Valentziako Euskaltzaleok Basque Club.  “It was a very well attended event, being a special celebration; we know that the cultural and literary events, especially those in Basque, in the heart of the Mediterranean can be rather small.  In this case, though, there were more than one hundred people in attendance,” Dabid Gonzalez told EuskalKultura.com.

Gonzalez himself, along with fellow member Gemma Sangines, was one to take the stage to recite, for the first time in public, Estelles’ poems translated into Basque.  “It was very emotional from beginning to end, because the texts of Estelles are full of feeling,” said Dabid. “During the presentation in Basque and Valencian they mixed in a very attractive way.  Poets, writers, Basque club memberss, musicians and singers…all present took a verse from Estellés and shot them into the air, the majority in Catalan and some in Euskera.”

Things that had never been expressed that way in Basque

Also attending the event was the works translator, Gerardo Markuleta, that told the local media that “the translation of Estellés into Basque was indispensable for our literature, in that there are no precedents in poetry with this way of analyzing everyday reality, sexuality, or many other themes like the civil war.  Translating Estellés required that I write things that I had never expressed before.”

The dream of translating the works of Vicent Andres Estelles took a while to come true; ten years, supported tirelessly by the poets Hector Arnau, Luis Carmona and edictor Paco Inclan with the collaboration of the town halls of Burjassot and Godella, and the foundationa Vicent Andres Estellés.  After the event Inclan said that the presentation was “just as we had designed: a festival of languages with the verses of Estelles as intermediaries.”  He added that the book is bilingual in Valencian and Basque which responds to an ”exercise in collective mental health in a society like Valencia in such need of returning to sanity from the nonsense suffered in recent years, in which their culture has also been abused.”  

The anthology will also be at the Durangoko Azoka in December. 

-For more information on the work, here
-An article on the presentation on the Godella Town Hall website