Poetry International Poetry International
Poet

Kirmen Uribe

Kirmen Uribe

Kirmen Uribe

(Basque Country, Spain, 1970)
Biography
In his short introduction to the poems below (see poem #1), the Basque writer Kirmen Uribe writes, of haikus, that they’re “the poetic form closest to silence”. In Spain when its dictatorship ended in 1975, the social covenant agreed upon at the time was said to be one of silence. Uribe’s generation in Spain has conscientiously engaged in exercises of historical memory. And these poems, for all their silence, belong to that effort.

Uribe’s first collection of poetry, Bitartean heldu eskutik (Meanwhile Take My Hand), came out in Basque in 2001 and, with translation, quickly brought him international recognition. Seven years later, his first novel, Bilbao–New York–Bilbao, won Spain’s 2009 National Prize for Literature and, in the United Kingdom, was selected as one of Foyles’ best books of its year.

Meanwhile Take My Hand (Graywolf, 2007) was a finalist for the 2008 PEN American Center Award for Poetry in Translation. His work has been published in U.S. periodicals such as The New Yorker, Open City, Brooklyn Rail, and Little Star, and translated into over fifteen languages, including French, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Greek, and English.

Currently Uribe is a Weiss International Fellow at Barnard College, where he is teaching a seminar on twenty-first-century world literature. He was awarded a New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellowship for 2018-2019, to work on his fourth novel. In 2017, Uribe was selected for a residency at the International Writers Program in Iowa (IWP), in its fiftieth-anniversary year. Originally from the town of Ondarroa in Bizkaia, Basque Country, Uribe is now based in New York City.
© Guest-edited by Elizabeth Macklin
BOOKS

Poetry
17 Segundo (17 Seconds), Susa, 2019. Translated into Spanish (Visor).
Bitartean heldu eskutik (Meanwhile Take My Hand), Susa, 2001. Translated into English (Graywolf), Spanish (Visor), French (Le Castor Astral), Catalan (Proa), Russian (Guernica Press), and Georgian (Ilia University Press).
Novels
Elkarrekin esnatzeko ordua (The Hour of Waking Together), Susa, 2016. Translated into Spanish (Seix Barral), French (Le Castor Astral), Catalan (Edicions 62), Portuguese (Elsinore), Galician (Xerais), Serbian (Areté), Greek (Kastaniotis), Japanese (Hakusui Sha).
Mussche (Mussche), Susa, 2012. Translated into Spanish (Seix Barral), Japanese (Hakusui Sha), Chinese (Lijiang Publishing House), Catalan (Edicions 62), Galician (Xerais), Dutch (De Blauwe Tijger).
Bilbao–New York–Bilbao, Elkar, 2008. Translated into English (Seren Books), Spanish (Seix Barral), French (Gallimard), Japanese (Hakusui Sha), Russian (Gernika), Portuguese (Planeta), Serbian (Geopoetika), Bulgarian (Enthusiast), Estonian (Loomingu Raamatukogu), Albanian (Toena), Slovenian (Cankarjeva Zalozva), Catalan (Edicions 62), Galician (Xerais), and Georgian (Ilia University Press).
Essays
ABC: Bilboko museoaren alfabetoa. (ABC: The Alphabet of the Bilbao Museum), Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao, 2018. (Published in Basque, Spanish, French, and English.)
Lizardi eta erotismoa (Lizardi and Eroticism), 1996, Alberdania.
Multimedia
Jainko txiki eta jostalari hura (That Tiny Playful God), 2013, Elkar.
Bar Puerto, DVD, 2010, Elkar.
Zaharregia, txikiegia agian. (Too old, too small, maybe). 2003, Gaztelupeko Hotsak.
Bar Puerto, 2000, Gastelupeko Hotsak.
Children’s books
Garmendia eta Fannyren sekretua (Garmendia and Fanny’s Secret), 2006, Elkar
Guti (Guti), 2005, Elkar.
Ez naiz ilehoria, eta zer?  (I’m not blond, so what?) 2004, Elkar.
Garmendia errege (Garmendia the King), 2004, Elkar.
Garmendia eta zaldun beltza (Garmendia and the Black Rider), 2003, Elkar. English translation Center for Basque Studies, 2015.
Ekidazu, lehoiek ez dakite biolina jotzen, 2003, Elkar.
Anthology
Portukoplak, 2006, Elkar.

LINKS in English
Meanwhile Take My Hand
Bilbao-NewYork-Bilbao
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
Lira fonds
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère