Kirmen Uribe is travelling to Japan to present his work with the aid of the AC/E Mobility grants.
The first stop on Kirmen Uribe’s Asian tour is Beijing, where he will take part in the launch of the Chinese edition of his novel Mussche (originally published in Basque by Ed. Susa and as Lo que mueve el mundo [What makes the world go round] in Spanish by Ed. Seix Barral).
One of the main promotional events scheduled is Kirmen Uribe’s participation in a literary debate together with famous local writer Su Tong on 2 December at auditorium no. 3 of the International Centre for Creative Writing of Beijing Normal University. In addition to the two authors, the centre’s director and literary critic Zhang Qinghua, Huang Yehua, the translator of Mussche, and Zhao Deming, professor emeritus of the Spanish department at Beijing University, are taking part in the debate. Entitled ‘How to write about the historical facts we forget on purpose’, the debate is intended to shed light on the respective roles of creation and memory in contemporary historical novels of the east and west.
Mussche is Kirmen Uribe’s first novel to be released on the Chinese market. The local publishers responsible for the project stressed ‘the huge significance of the facts of which it tells, which are unknown to Chinese readers 70 years on from the end of the Second World War’.
The second stop on the tour takes Uribe to Tokyo and Kyoto from 5 to 7 December to present the Japanese translation of Mussche. The book, which is published by the prestigious publishers Hakusuisha of Tokyo, has been translated directly from Basque by translator Nami Kaneko, with the assistance of the Instituto Vasco Etxepare.
At 8pm on 5 December the book will be launched at the Hyakunen bookshop (Murata Building 2F, 2-2-10 Kichijoji-honcho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo), where Uribe will personally tell Japanese readers about his novel along with translator Nami Kaneko.
http://www.100hyakunen.com/news/info/201510291821
The following day, Uribe will attend a talk with literary critic Ryuta Imafuku of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. It will be held at the B&B bookshop (Dai-ni Matsuya Building 2F, 2-12-4 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo), at 12 midday, and the subject will be peace and memory.
http://bookandbeer.com/event/20151206_mussche/
That day, Uribe will give a poetry recital in Basque, Japanese and Spanish with the participation of poet Keijiro Suga and musicians Yusei Kaneko and Jun Kawasaki. It will take place at 6.30pm in the Café Lavandería (Koyosha Building 1F, 2-12-9 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo).
The last stage of the journey will be Kyoto on 7 December, where Uribe will take part in a discussion with Professor Hikaru Fujii (Doshisha University), an expert on contemporary American novels and translator of authors such as Dennis Johnson and Daniel Alarcón. The talk will be hosted by the Maruzen bookshop (Yamasaki-cho 251, Sanjo-kudaru, Kawaramachi-dori, Chukyo-ku, Kyoto), at 7pm.
Kirmen Uribe and Su Tong during the presentation in Beijing