Elkar 2021 230 Pages Original title: Karena ISBN: 978-84-1360-160-1 Translated into: click here
Alaine Agirre brings up various issues linked to maternity that are usually silenced and hidden away, in a novel written with intensity and emotion: assisted reproduction, its physical and psychological effects, the tensions that arise when one member of a couple wants a child more than the other and miscarriages and the mourning period that follows. The author uses her characteristic drive and passion to tell us about the everyday life of the protagonist Sara Mendizabal with a lyrical musicality, drawing beauty out of pain and constructing a whole universe from within the body.
Alaine Agirre was born in Bermeo in 1990, but currently lives in Donostia (both cities in the Basque Country). She started writing at a young age, and in a few years she has become one of the most personal and interesting voices in Basque literature. She has won the approval of critics and readers, thanks to the rhythm, power and passion of her prose. She is the author of five novels: Odol mamituak (Blood Clots, 2014, Zazpi Kale award), X is dead (2015, Zilarrezko Euskadi award), Bi aldiz erditu zinen nitaz, ama (You Gave Birth to Me Twice, Mother, 2017, Joseba Jaka Prize), Kamisoi zuri zetazkoa (White Silk Nightdress, 2018, Basque Government literary creation grant) and Karena (2021, Irun City Prize). In addition, she has published a book of poems, Txoriak etortzen ez diren lekua (The Place Where Birds Don’t Come, 2017), and many books and stories in children´s and young people’s literature. Her work has been awarded prizes and translated into several languages: Spanish, Catalan, Galician, English, Danish, Korean and Chinese.
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