Basque Literature
Although the first instances of coherent Basque phrases and sentences go as far back as the San Millán glosses dating back to about 950AD, the large-scale damage done by periods of great instability and warfare such as the clan wars of the Middle Ages, the Carlist Wars and the Spanish Civil War have meant that very little written material predating the 16th century has survived.
The earliest surviving traces of Basque literary activity go back to the 16th century but significant production does not seem to have set in until the 17th century. Since the end of the Francoist period in Spain, the formation of a standard language and the large scale introduction to Basque into the education system, literary activity has soared and while much of the literature written in Basque remains targeted at the native audience, some Basque authors that have been translated into other languages such as Bernardo Atxaga have achieved global recognition.
Read more about Basque Literature: The 16th Century, The 17th Century, The 20th Century, Publishing
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“Despite your best efforts, you could not invent a better police force for literature than criticism and the author’s own conscience.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)