Bernardo Atxaga. Born in Asteasu in 1951, his real name is Jose Irazu. Some of his most important books published in Spanish are: Bi anai (Two Brothers), Obabakoak, (1989, Winner of the Euskadi Prize, Winner of the National Narrative Prize), El hombre solo (The Lone Man, 1994), Esos cielos (Those Skies, 1997), El hijo del acordeonista (The Accordionist's Son, 2004, Grinzane Cavour Prize, Mondello Prize, Times Literary Supplement Translation Prize), Siete casas en Francia (Seven Houses in France, 2009, short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 15 best fiction books published in the United States in 2012 ) and Días de Nevada (Days of Snow, 2013).

As for poetry, he published his first poetry book Etiopia (Ethiopia) in 1978, and won the Cesare Pavese Prize 2003 for the Italian translation of Poemas&Híbridos ("Poems & Hybrids"). His work has been translated into 32 languages and has been adapted to the cinema screen by Montxo Armendariz (Obaba, 2005), Aizpea Goenaga (Zeru horiek, 2006 ) and Imanol Rayo (Bi anai, 2011). In 2006 he was appointed member of the Euskaltzaindia, the Basque Language Academy.