Intercultural Spaces, Transcultural Spaces and Transliteratures

Personal identity and national identity merge in each individual that is negotiating communication with “the other.” Not only each individual aims to be recognized as such but also seeks or at least expects to be associated with a community. Taking the Basque language as a linguistic case study of the so called “minority languages” having coexisted in the shadow of a more robust official language, this article articulates the relationship between individuals and society, between societies and the transnational scenario within the confines of linguistic transactions. Living in between languages brings us not only to oral exchanges but also brings us back to literature, the land of languages. This is the space where languages open up a myriad of possibilities for communication, where multiple languages are expected to live side by side in a convivial environment. Literature constitutes the optimal transnational space where ideas are welcome and languages are the facilitators of the transmission of those ideas, representations, expressions, passions and all that emerge from the human heart. Literature is the chosen field where languages disseminate the intimate secrets of a society that never ceases to translate itself. It is in the multiple translations acting as a kaleidoscope that individuals and societies expose themselves while witnessing the metamorphoses of “the other” that transforming the self in a loving act embraces the other.