Art with an Accent The Cultural Geography of Creative Expression

Opening Keynote Address Basque and Me: Language, Memory, and Literature Kirmen Uribe — New York University

In this lecture, Kirmen Uribe reflects on his journey from growing up under the final years of Franco’s dictatorship to becoming a writer living and working in New York. Moving between Basque, Spanish, and English, he explores how language shapes memory, identity, and literary form, and how writing across languages has transformed his understanding of fiction itself. Blending personal stories with reflections on literature, translation, and multilingualism, the lecture argues that languages do not survive through purity but through encounter, and that literature written from the margins can expand the possibilities of narrative for everyone. Rather than speaking only about Basque literature, Basque and Me offers a broader meditation on what it means to write between languages in an increasingly interconnected world.