- Gabriel Aresti
Infobox Writer
name = Gabriel Aresti Segurola
caption =
birthdate =October 14 ,1933
birthplace =Bilbao ,Biscay ,Basque Country (historical territory)
deathdate = death date|1975|6|5|df=y
deathplace = Bilbao, Biscay,Basque Country (historical territory)
occupation =Poet ,writer
movement =
Gabriel Aresti Segurola (
October 14 ,1933 —June 5 ,1975 ) was one of the most important writers and poets inBasque language in the 20th century.He grew up in
Bilbao , which was a Spanish speaking environment. Although his father talked to his parents in Basque language, the child Gabriel did not have Basque as mother tongue. He was a self-taught student of the language, at the age of 21 he collaborated in some magazines. His literary career began with a work influenced by the symbolism,Maldan Behera (Downhill). His most important works are, however,Harri eta Herri (Stone and Country, 1964), Euskal Harria (The Basque Stone, 1968) andHarrizko Herri Hau (This Country of Stone, 1971), related to the social realism. He also cultivated other genres, like the novel, the short story and theatre. He was an excellent translator of Basque; he translated authors likeFederico García Lorca ,T. S. Eliot andBocaccio .Very critical and controversial, he published many articles, which brought him problems not only with
Franco 's regime but also with some of the mainstream Basque nationalism tendencies, because of his leftist social ideas. Gabriel Aresti was one of the greates inspirers of the modern culture in Basque language (though he always found the sources in the popular culture and the daily talking, opposing to the purists of the language), and as a Member of the Academy of the Basque language, he defended the unified Basque language, which he also used before it was adopted by the Academy in 1968. He founded the publishing house Lur, allowing new authors in the Basque language likeRamon Saizarbitoria , Arantxa Urretabizkaia orXabier Lete to publish their first works.External links
* [http://www.basquepoetry.net/aurki-e/A.htm Poems of Gabriel Aresti]
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