Anthology of Serbian aphorisms in Basque

BELGRADE - The anthology of Serbian anti-war aphorisms entitled "A shot in the war" (Gerrari tiroka) has been published in Spain, in the Basque language, the Section of Satirists of the Association of Writers of Serbia has stated.

The anthology was issued by the publishing house Erroteta, based in Amorebieta-Etxano, north Spain, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay.

The selection, which was composed by writer and translator Hasier Agirre, includes several hundred lines of 44 Serb aphorists from Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Romania.

The list of authors comprises: Aleksandar Baljak, Milan Bestic, Aleksandar Cotric, Slobodan Simic, Vitomir Teofilovic, Milovan Vitezovic, Rastko Zakic, Rade Jovanovic and others.

Aguirre took three years to collect, translate and select the aphorisms from the Balkans written in the Serbian language, in order to present the modern Serbian aphorisms to the Basque-speaking region.

The Basque language is very specific since it has no similarities to any other language currently in use and does not belong to the Indo-European language group, and it is being used by about 700 thousand people in northern Spain and southern France, reads the Association's statement.

The basis for the anthology "A shot in the war" was a bilingual (Serbian and English) anthology of Serbian anti-war aphorism "The Serbian Secret Weapons", compiled by Slobodan Simic in 2005.

In the last three years, the anthologies of Serbian aphorisms were published in Italian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Polish, and Romanian, and the one in Czech is under way.