Kirmen Uribe was born in Ondarroa, in Spain’s Basque Country, in 1970.  After receiving his university degree in Basque philology, he has done postgraduate work in comparative literature in Trento, Italy, and has worked as a teacher, translator, and scriptwriter.  He writes a weekly column for the Basque-language daily Berria, and has published essays, stories, comics, and a children’s book.  He has translated the poetry of Raymond Carver, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Mahmud Darwish, and Wislawa Szymborska, among others.  His theatre piece Ekidazu has been produced by groups Oskorri and Kukubiltxo. In collaboration with the musicians Mikel Urdangarin and Bingen Mendizabal, he worked on a multimedia project – combining poetry/prose, video, music, and oral history – which was documented in the 2001 CD-book Bar Puerto.  A similar collaboration led to the 2003 Zaharregia, txikiegia agian (Too Old, Too Small, Maybe).  His first collection of poems, Bitartean heldu eskutik (Meanwhile Hold Hands), won Spain’s 2001 Premio de la Crítica, and has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese.

Originally posted with the url: www.englishpen.org/writersintranslation/magazineofliteratureintranslat/basquecountry/kirmenuribe/