Researching and Translating Literature Woven in Minority Languages

2024/10/31

I specialize in the research and translation of literature written in Basque, a minority language spoken in the Basque Country, a region that straddles northern Spain and southwestern France. I imagine most people would be surprised to hear this, asking, "What is Basque? Is there really such a thing as Basque literature?" Until I encountered a certain book, I myself was unaware that Basque literature even existed.

"Obabakoak" (published in 1988, Japanese translation in 2004), a collection of linked short stories by the author Bernardo Atxaga, has been translated into about 30 languages and was the work that first brought Basque literature to international attention. When I was a first-year university student majoring in Spanish, I happened to read the Japanese translation of this book and was completely captivated. Then it occurred to me that the Japanese version was a re-translation from Spanish, not from the original Basque. The thought, "If I could read it in Basque, could I get even a little closer to the world of this work?" was what prompted me to start learning Basque and researching its literature.

I later learned that although the Basque language had been in decline, caught between the major languages of Spanish and French, it underwent a remarkable revival in the latter half of the 20th century. It is a rather rare case among the thousands of minority languages on Earth—many of which continue to lose speakers and are on the verge of extinction—in that it possesses a modern literature that has risen to the stage of world literature. And Atxaga, the author of "Obabakoak," was a central figure in the rise of modern Basque literature. Fascinated by this, I have been conducting research to clarify how Basque literature developed to its current state and what it means to write in a minority language like Basque.

Within this, I have placed particular emphasis on multilingualism and translation. In the Basque Country, on average, about two-thirds of the population are Spanish or French speakers who do not understand Basque, so Basque is not used in every aspect of society. As a result, the minority Basque speakers are forced to be bilingual in their daily lives, creating a highly asymmetrical relationship. Basque literature, therefore, has this multilingual environment and asymmetrical linguistic and social relationship as its backdrop. Naturally, this strongly influences the creative process, the written works themselves, and even the way works are received and translated into other languages.

Leveraging my knowledge of Basque and drawing on the findings of world literature theory and translation studies, which have become more active since around the 2000s, I am trying to unravel these complexities and approach the reality of Basque literature from both internal and external perspectives. I am the only researcher of Basque literature in Japan, and even globally, researchers who can analyze it in the original Basque, rather than through translations into Spanish (or French), are extremely rare. I hope to develop my research by taking advantage of this unique position.

As part of my research, I have also dedicated myself to translating Basque literature. To date, I have translated several works from Basque into Japanese, including Atxaga's novel "The Accordionist's Son" and works by other authors such as Kirmen Uribe, and I have been fortunate enough to receive translation awards in both Japan and the Basque Country. In my classes, such as "Literature," which I teach on a rotating basis at Hiyoshi Campus, and "Cultural Studies of the Spanish-speaking World," offered at Mita Campus, I introduce the cultures of various regions and languages of the Spanish-speaking world, including the Basque literary works I have translated. I encourage anyone who wants to broaden their perspective on language and culture to come and take a look.

*Affiliation and title are current as of the time of the interview.