The writer Joan Mari Irigoien (Altza, San Sebastián, 1948 – San Sebastián, 2023) passed away this Wednesday, May 17. After studying Engineering, playing in the Real’s second team with players like Larrañaga and Kortabarria, and working as a teacher and proofreader, the man from Altza leaves an extensive body of work both in narrative and poetry, and children’s and youth literature.

After a two-year stay in Venezuela (the influence of South American magical realism can be guessed in his prose), Irigoien turned to literature in the mid-1970s, and did so with immediate results: in 1975 he published the collection of poems “Hutsetik esperantzara”, and a year later his novel “Oilarraren promise” would see the light of day.

Irigoien has been a prolific writer (he was linked to the Elkar publishing house for many years), read by the public and awarded by critics (he won the Euskadi Literature Award with “Babilonia” and “Udazkenaren balkoitik”), and after “Oilarraren promise ” more novels arrived: “Poliedroaren hostoak”, “Udazkenaren balkoitik”, “Babylonia”, the extensive “Lur bat haratago”, “Consummatum est”, the humorous novel “Kalamidadeen liburua”…

Irigoien also wrote poetry, especially at the beginning and end of his career, and completed, among others, the collections of poems “Denborak ez zuen nora” (1989), “Biziminaren sonetoak” (2004) and “Sorgin-argien ehizan” (2022 ).

Koldo Izagirre prepared a poetic anthology of Irigoien, which the Susa publishing house published in 2002 as part of the essential series “XX. mendeko poesia kaierak”. “Thus, through birds, jewels, paintings and exotic situations presented with new metrics, the poet creates a free territory, a time without awareness of ugliness and laziness, a future in which beauty and goodness converge”, Izagirre wrote in the prologue of that notebook about the poetry of Irigoien.

Joan Mari Irigoien published several works of children’s and youth literature, including “Bakarneren gaztelua” (1986), “Udazkenaren balkoitik” (1987), “Komunista.com” (2005) and “Pistolak eta epistolak” (2014).

In 2012, the Altza writer announced that he was suffering from a degenerative disease, primary lateral sclerosis, but he continued writing, to the congratulations of his readers; in 2019 he published the comic novel “Derbia”, and in 2022 the collection of poems “Sorgin-argien ehizan”.

Source: Eitb

Bruce

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