From the book’s dust jacket…”‘The Rivers Are Frozen’ [1942] is the love story of an American girl and a Basque man, which offers a portrait of the Basques in New York City; but it is more than that…”
Much of the novel takes place in the “Café de la Pelota” near the Hudson River docks in New York; this is clearly a thinly veiled reference to Valentin Aguirre’s legendary restaurant at 82 Bank Street, Jai Alai. Chapter XIX of the novel begins: “Years and years ahead in the future, if there was any future for anyone, there might well be the Café de la Pelota. Great-grandchildren of Don Alfredo would run it. They might try to change its character, make it modern with chromium and mirrors; but they wouldn’t be able to keep the men from the waterfront away entirely. The place itself was too near the docks, and it belonged to the travelers of the world.” Today, 82 Bank Street is home to a chic and expensive clothes boutique…
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Una novela de 1942, que cuenta “una historia de amor entre una chica americana y un hombre vasco, que ofrece un retrato de los vascos en Nueva York, pero que es mucho más que eso” según la solapa…
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Goiko Mendija
Goiko mendijan edurra dago
Errekaldian izotza.
Neu zeugandik azke nago
Ta posik duakat bijotza.
Goiko mendijan edurra dago
Errekaldian izotza…
Spanish Immigrants in the United States 