Fernando Aramburu

Nicasio, ya jubilado, acostumbra a subir los jueves al cementerio de Ortuella a visitar la tumba de su nieto. Es uno de los muchos niños fallecidos tras una explosión de gas en un colegio de aquella localidad, un accidente que sacudió al País Vasco y a toda España en 1980. Por las andanzas del abuelo, una figura que se agranda hasta hacerse inolvidable, por el testimonio de la madre muchos años después, por la crónica objetiva de lo que le ocurrió a la familia, descubriremos cómo aquella tragedia lacerante y devastadora les alteró, cómo sacó a relucir aspectos inesperados, cómo trastocó sus vidas. Con la maestría habitual de Aramburu, el lector se verá inmerso en una historia de emociones inesperadas, una exploración psicológica y literaria con afilado bisturí que nos mantiene pegados al devenir de los destinos de los protagonistas. Una novela que alberga una densidad emocional tan alta que exige una lectura atenta, hasta la última línea, para entender, comprender, emocionarnos con el destino de sus protagonistas.… (more)

The Mothers’ Tales
Translated by Alfred MacAdam
Read by David Pittu
Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins

“I wrote against crimes committed with a political excuse, in the name of a homeland where a handful of armed people, with the shameful support of a section of society, determine who belongs to that homeland and who should leave or disappear. I wrote without hatred against the language of hatred and against the oblivion propagated by those who try to invent a history with which to justify their project and their totalitarian beliefs.” - Fernando Aramburu

So wrote the author of this excellent novel of how terrorism affects us all. These words could be written of so many conflicts we are experiencing on earth today. The conflict of Homeland is the Basque conflict of that ended in 2011.

I knew little of the Basque conflict before reading Homeland, but it didn’t really matter. It came hard on me reading Brotherless Night - which I’m pleased to see won the Women’s’ Prize for Fiction this year - which tells a similar story.

Like the Tamil conflict and so many others, the Basque conflict was about land, and the more violent factions that indulged in terrorism.

I tried reading Homeland in its original Spanish, but there was a lot of Basque evident in the characters’ names and in some of their conversations. I gave up and finished Homeland in the English translation.

What is wonderful about Homeland is the way the story of the two families is told by the two mothers talking. They talk not to other people, but to an imagined husband in one case, and in the other to a statue of a saint.

Both families are Basque. One is aligned to the terrorist organization - ETA and the other wants peace, while retaining cultural identity.

Bittori and Miren were once close friends. Both Basque and mothers of extended families, their lives are torn apart when Bittori’s husband is murdered by the terrorist ETA, and Miren’s oldest son Joxe Mari is suspect.

Miren is religious and stands firmly behind her son, whether innocent or not. She goes to church daily where she talks to a statue of San Sebastián as if her were a close friend. Through these one-way conversations we learn not only about Miren, but about the rest of her family, particularly her children, and the Basque villagers.

Bittori is not a believer. She visits her husband’s grave daily and tells him about how she is feeling, about what is going on in their Basque families, their children and their village. She knows he can’t hear her but she needs to talk to someone. Talking at her husband’s graveside is a form of therapy.

Though Homeland is largely told through the two women there’s a lot more to the book than the families and village life. There’s the exposure of the non-cultural - that is, political and economic causes of the conflict, and side stories that lend moral twists.

But it’s the two women talking intimately to non-beings that puts the humanity into the book. Miren takes Saint Sebastian to task. She talks to the statue as if it were a living breathing entity. When things don’t go her way she is annoyed at the saint. If you can’t get Joxe Mari out of prison she sneers at the statue, at least cure his hemorrhoids.

The story of two families torn apart by terrorism is thus gently told. I highly recommend this wonder of a novel.… (more)