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Donostia-San Sebastian.  The Basque language and culture classes at the University of Brno, in the Czech Republic, celebrated a night of poetry on May 7 entitled, “Chansons d’amour, ilargi beterik gabeko gauak,” organized by lecturer Ainara Maya.  The recital consisted of a poetry reading in various languages like Basque, Spanish, Czech and French.  The event was attended by several of her students who had the opportunity to enjoy poems in Basque as well as in their own language.

On the other hand, on May 3, poet Tere Irastortza gave a reading of several of her poems as part of the “Speaking in Tongues” program as part of the literary festival, PEN World Voices. The event took place at the University of New York in a recital where Irastorza shared the stage with a Catalan Mencion Mateu and a Peruvian poet, Odi Gonzales.  The audiences listened to poems recited by their authors in Basque, Catalan and Quechua followed by their respective translations into English.

“I am so proud to represent the Basque culture and an opportunity to get to know and to be in contact with people of other cultures (…), that are aware of what is being done in minority languages,” Irastortza stressed, according to the Etxepare Basque Institute, who also collaborated in the festival.  “I wanted to demonstrate the very act of creation, both in the physical sense of motherhood as well as in the sense of a collective creation, which can never deviate from the culture of each author.”