Glass Eye

Born in Quito, Basque Country, in 1962, she won the Criticism Prize in 2001 and 2011 for her two poetry books, Sign of the Body and Foam in the Hands, as well as the Basque Children’s Literature Prize three times. As a writer and poet, she has participated in international forums and festivals, including the Dublin Literature Festival (2003), the Slovenian Literature Festival (2006), the Edinburgh Festival (2007), the Central European Festival (2016), and the Miami Book Fair (2016). In 2015, she received a grant for writing and translation in New York. She has translated several books of poetry and novels into Basque from French. In 2018, she received the Basque Country Translation Prize for her translations of international children’s literature. Her novel, Glass Eye, which we translate and publish here, won two literary prizes for Basque literature—the Zapicali and the Petrico Libero—and has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, French, and English. Why am I talking about all this? It’s a challenge I posed because a publisher had baited me a long time ago. That’s what made the challenge fun. “Are you kidding me? Don’t say that seriously. Think about it… Maybe your glass eye will inspire you. If the detail of my eye makes me a writer, so be it… But… Ah! You’re speaking metaphorically, aren’t you?” “Not at all. Doesn’t having one eye affect you in your daily life? Write about it, but do it as if you were using a razor blade. One thing to keep in mind. I spoke to the publisher in question a short while ago. She commented on the plot above: the focus of the narrative is broken emotion, and the glass eye is a symbol. You know, it’s a certain theme that my disappointments will represent.”