Jon Juaristi

Juaristi's poetic voice is influenced by the Basque poet (and his close friend) Gabriel Aresti, and by the Basque-born, Spanish-writing writers Miguel de Unamuno and Blas de Otero [es] —as well as by the irony of the poet and Anglo-American essayist W. H. Auden. His poetry frequently evokes the mood of the Bilbao of his childhood and youth, and its tone is disillusioned, bitter, urban and intelligent.

He has occupied the chair of Spanish Philology at the University of the Basque Country, the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University, and has been titular professor of the Chair of Contemporary Thought of the Cañada Blanch Foundation at the University of Valencia. Juaristi also worked as a lecturer and researcher in Austin and at El Colegio de México. He directed the National Library of Spain from 1999 to 2001, and then left that position to direct the Cervantes Institute until his replacement after the Socialist triumph of March 14, 2004.

His criticism of ethnic nationalism and its invention and manipulation of myths, in particular on the part of Basque nationalism, has gained media visibility through numerous articles, essays, and speeches. Juaristi's stance against terrorism, and his support of victims of ETA violence, was further made visible by the formation of the Foro Ermua (Forum of Ermua, now a conservative anti-terrorism organization but with roots in the Basque left) in 1997. In the last decade he has been defined, in various mass media interviews, as a "Spanish nationalist"." Since the end of the 1980s, due to his harsh criticism of Basque separatist violence, his life has been threatened by ETA. At the end of 1999, he left the university of Deusto and the Basque country after the ETA announcement that it would end its ceasefire of the previous year, and having been advised of the seriousness of the threats on his life by that group.

In 1980, he affiliated himself with the Communist Party of Spain during its process of unification with Euskadiko Ezkerra (EE), which would give rise to a new social-democratic group that actively rejected the use of violence. He left it in 1986, disappointed when EE did not form an alliance with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) after the Basque Autonomous Community elections of 1986. In 1987 Juaristi joined the PSOE. Later, he declared in his memoirs that he did so spurred by "ethical imperatives" as a result of the attack by the radical separatist "Mendeku" group against the "Casa del Pueblo" (PSOE local chapter) in Portugalete. Several PSOE members were burned to death in the attack.

In 1974 he left LCR and leftist political activity almost completely and dedicated himself to his academic career.

Later, at University, he entered a minority workerist grouping of ETA, named ETA VI Asamblea, which in 1973 amalgamated with the Trotskyist Liga Comunista Revolucionaria (LCR) as its Basque branch. Having come to police attention, he abandoned his native city to study Romance Philology in Seville, returning eventually to the University of Deusto, where he received his doctorate. In Deusto he was expelled in 1972 "for agitation" but was re-admitted the following year. In this period he spent a number of spells in prison for "minor offences", and was condemned by the Tribunal of Public Order.

Jon Juaristi Linacero (born in Bilbao in 1951) is a Spanish poet, essayist and translator in Spanish and Basque, as well as a self-confessed former ETA militant. At the moment he resides in Madrid.