Rikardo Arregi Spain

Rikardo Arregi (Diaz de Heredia) was born in Gasteiz in 1958. He studied psychology and trained as a teacher at Salamanca University, and studied Basque philology at the University of the Basque Country. He currently works as a secondary school teacher.

He published his first collection of poetry, Hari Hauskorrak (Fragile Threads), in 1993, and received the Spanish Critics' Prize for it. In 1998 he wrote Kartografia (Cartography), which was also awarded the Spanish Critics' Prize. Arregi's poems have been included in recent Basque poetry anthologies as well as various anthologies published in Spanish, German, Slovenian, Brazilian Portuguese and Galician.

He has also been widely published in magazines. Arregi is a regular contributor to the Basque press for which he often writes leading articles and reviews, and he has taken part in many literary festivals. He has participated with other writers in collaborative translations of poetry by the Polish Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska, and Portuguese poets such as Sophia de Melo, Eugenio de Andrade and Jorge de Sena. He has also translated the work of the Spanish poet Ernestina de Champourcin into Basque. Other recent translations by Arregi include the works of contemporary poets Brane Mozetic, Jacek Dehnel, Cathal Ó Searcaigh and Verdinš.

(2007)