Itxaro Borda: melancholic migrancy and the writing of a national lesbian self

Abstract

The article analyzes the literary work of Basque writer Itxaro Borda. The issue of migrancy is raised in order to discuss the ways in which she locates her work and her "minority culture" in the context of globalization. Reconsidering the relationship between sexuality and nationalism in the context of globalization and migrancy, the article also addresses the ways in which her lesbian writing articulates a subject position that is melancholic towards Basque nationalism and its body politics, and in this way differs from the exilic writing of other heterosexual women writers. The article concludes that Borda's melancholia is specifically directed towards a national Basque mother, located outside official nationalist culture, who, as a result, becomes a productive body and site for writing new and utopian versions of Borda's self and the Basque Country.