Urtzi Urrutikoetxea

Urtzi Urrutikoetxea (born 12 October 1977 in Bilbao, Biscay, Basque Country) is a Basque writer and journalist.

Life

He has worked for the Euskal Telebista (Basque television), as well as in several publications in the Basque language, such as Euskaldunon Egunkaria, Berria, Gara, Jakin, Argia, Nora, Zazpi Haizetara and Bertsolari, among others. As a freelance writer, he has worked in different countries, like Iraq, Georgia (including Abkhazia and South Ossetia), Turkey, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Moldova, Kosovo and many European nations.

He has published three books of poems, one novel and one travel book (Afrika Express, 2008) in Basque, and one guidebook in Spanish about the city of Berlin, where he has lived and worked as correspondent. Urtzi Urrutikoetxea is the translator into Basque of the Hungarian Nobel Prize Laureate Imre Kertesz's Fateless and has also published in Basque a version for children of the Kurdish epic poem Mem û Zin. He has also worked in the field of bertsolaritza (oral improvised poetry in the Basque language), collaborating in different projects like the book Bizkaiko Bertsogintza IV (2006). Urrutikoetxea has been the local producer in the Basque Country and translator in some audiovisual projects, such as the documentary An Independent Mind (2008), by Rex Bloomstein, and the report by Gundars Reders in Latvia TV (2008). He is also the Deputy President of the Euskal PEN^[1] / Basque PEN Club.

Works

Poetry

• Gaur ere ez du atertuko 1998, Arabako, Foru Aldundia
• Borroka galduetatik gatoz^[2] (We come from lost struggles) 1997
• Utzidazu karmina kentzen 2000, Kutxa

Fiction

• Auzoak^[3] (Quarters, Neighborhoods) 2005, (Basque)

Travel books

• Guía de Berlín,^[4] 2005 (Spanish)
• Afrika Express (2008, the story of a car journey from Bilbao to Mali and Senegal) (Basque)

References

External links

• Basque Literature
• Urtzi Urrutikoetxea Vacas in the Spanish-language Auñamendi Encyclopedia.