William A. Douglass: Mr. Basque

For Basques around the world, Mr. Basque is the public face of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Basque Studies Program, which a president of the Basque Country described as a “candle in the night” for Basques during the long years of the Franco dictatorship; for the Basques of the American West (and indeed the Americas) he is the author who brought their experience to the light of day in his acclaimed book Amerikanuak: Basques in the New World; for Nevadans he is a lifelong resident, a shrewd casino operator, and a member of a true Nevada pioneering family; and for his fellow anglers and sportsmen he is a steady companion on adventures around the world. Through these pages, the result of more than ten years of interviews between the author, Miel Elustondo, and William A. Douglass, “Bill,” the reader experiences a candid and vivid portrait of life spent in constant motion: searching for lizards in the high desert as a boy, starting a family on a shoestring, establishing a reputation in academia, participating in brokering the end of violence in the Basque Country, and much, much more . . . “It has been ten years now of comings and goings. Bill—as we all call William A. Douglass—has come many times to my country, as many times as or more than I have gone to his. And always, whenever and wherever we have coincided, we have conducted an interview, or he has given me a new chapter of this book, or informed me of some change in it that he wished to make. . . In Bill’s and my private language, we were continuing “to tug the string”—meaning that we were adding content. In this fashion, the present text has taken on a life of its own and has escaped us to the point that I can no longer encompass all of the ramifications.” (Miel A. Elustondo, from the Preface) “What follows is more an adaptation and, at times, even a revision of Miel’s book into English, rather than a direct translation of it. I found myself rearranging text and even embellishing it. I have done so with the author’s blessing.” (William A. Douglass, from the Translator’s Note)