Gorka Aulestia Txakartegi
Gorka Aulestia Txakartegi (born 11 December 1932 in Ondarroa, Biscay, Spain) is a Spanish Basque literary historian and lexicographer. He grew up hearing Biscayan and Gipuzkoan Basque dialects and later embraced Batua, the standardized Basque, when it was codified. He studied philosophy and theology with the aim of becoming a priest, but earned a degree in social economy from the University of Deusto in Bilbao.
He moved to the United States, where he earned an M.A. in French and Spanish literature and, in 1987, a Ph.D. in Basque Studies from the University of Nevada, Reno. His doctoral thesis was El bertsolarismo: literatura oral improvisada en el País Vasco. From 1976 to 1979 he served as the Basque language editor for the Basque Studies Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. From 1980 to 1988 he worked as a lexicographer and instructor in the Basque Studies Program, and in 1989 he became an assistant professor.
From 1989 to 2000 he taught literature at the Basque EUTG center in San Sebastián, part of the University of Deusto, after which he retired. He has been a corresponding member of Euskaltzaindia since 1996 and a member of its committee on Basque literature.
Aulestia Txakartegi has written ten books, 91 articles, and many conference papers and book reviews. He contributed reviews to World Literature Today, Basque Artistic Expression, and the Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, and wrote pieces such as “Bernard Etxepare, Medieval or Renaissance Writer?” and “Survey of French Basque Literature in the 20th Century.” Since 2002 he has been working on a dictionary of Basque literature, a project sponsored by Euskaltzaindia, in which he has been involved for about ten years.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 07:37 (CET).