Bookshops

In 1976, after Franco’s death and at a time when Basque culture remained silenced, the Jaka brothers opened the Bilintx bookshop in the old quarter of Donostia (San Sebastián), the first elkar Taldea bookshops in Hego Euskal Herria, the Spanish Basque Country; the Zabal bookshop had opened in Baiona (Bayonne, in the French Basque Country) two years before. The aim was to create a shop window for Basque culture and raise its profile, and this same aim led to the opening of the bookshops that followed, some set up by the group itself and others as a continuation of existing businesses.

One of the principles of elkar Taldea has been not to open bookshops in places that already have establishments devoted to Basque culture, and it has only opened shops in these places after such bookshops have disappeared.

At first, the bookshops took the names of bertsolari singers (Bilintx, Iparragirre, Xalbador, Mattin and so on), to give visibility to landmarks of Basque culture.  However, since 2005 all the group’s bookshops have been given the same name: elkar.

These are generalist shops selling books and records for all audiences, as well as educational toys and stationery, and their primary goal has always to been to raise the profile of books in Basque and on Basque topics.