Performative Identities and the Representation of ETA in Basque Film and Novel

Abstract

The novels Gizona Bere Bakardadean and Zeru Horiek, by Bernardo Atxaga, and the film Días contados (1994), by Imanol Uribe, constitute renowned examples of the representation of ETA activists in literature and film. All three also represent performative constructions of melancholic, gendered identity in postmodern life, constructions which supersede their representation of Basque identity. Instead of offering specific insight into the political constitution of national identities, ETA members and ex-members in these works express first and foremost the human condition in modernity. Consequently, this essay, inspired by Judith Butler's theories about the performative construction of identity and the psychological constitutive processes of the psyche in subjection to normativity, focuses on how Atxaga and Uribe construct the modern subject's identity in these three works.