Special edition of Obabakoak (Alfaguara, 2019), with illustrations by Marta Cárdenas

On the heels of writer Bernardo Atxaga’s winning the National Prize for Spanish Literature in 2019, Alfaguara has just published a special edition of Obabakoak.

This beautiful and finely crafted edition also features illustrations by painter Marta Cárdenas, who hails from San Sebastián.

Winner of the Euskadi Prize, the Critics’ Prize, the Millepages Prize and Spain’s National Novel Prize and translated into more than twenty languages and adapted to cinema and theater, Obabakoak is one of the crowning achievements in contemporary Basque and Spanish literature.

Obabakoak tells a story that are many stories at once: in the town of Obaba, a geography teacher remembers his strange love affair with a girl he only knew through letters, a young school teacher has to learn to fight her loneliness during a long, cold winter, a clergyman writes a letter telling what happened to a child lost in the forest, and a writer’s life turns upside down when he discovers a surprising detail in an old school photo.

Critics have said:

• "With a love of storytelling, the style is surprising for its liveliness and expressiveness." El Cultural
• "Its pages make the word and the world new and fresh again, with an originality not yet very common in contemporary Spanish narrative." The New York Times
• "There is humor, irony, magic, mystery and a mastery of poetic language." Publishing News
• "Obabakoak is pure literature." Basler Zeitung