RAMÓN OLASAGASTI, CÉSAR LLAGUNO, FELIPE H. NAVARRO Y PEDRO VILLAREJO
Saturday December 6 – 12:00 Euskalduna Bilbao
She was the first woman to climb all fourteen mountains over eight thousand metres high. Her name and person were forever linked by the fine thread of history, like eternal snow clinging to the rock on the great mountains. She could have been Irati or Amaia, but she is Edurne: snow, in Basque. “Everything that has a name exists”, as the saying goes, but this comic does not look to create a myth. Edurne is not a mythological creature: though capable of climbing those 14 revered altars, her essence is fragile, like the snow flower that only grows in the steep, high mountains. To escape the clutches of depression, she had to conquer the most difficult nine thousand metres of her life, a journey on which she was supported by her childhood friend, Asier Izagirre, and many others.
A rich vocabulary appears emerges from the snow, language that is proper even for summarising Edurne's career: the snowstorm that sets in, aided by passion, the frozen tears shed in the face of misfortune, the fall into the snow pit, the thawing of the bitter feelings macerated in that gloomy corner... The path travelled by Edurne was blazed by other women: Pili Ganuza, Amaia Aranzabal, Miriam García Pascual... whose footprints are captured in these pages, firm and beautiful, like the ethereal marks left by birds on the snow.
Mendi Film & Sua Edizioak comic collection:
• Everest: 1980 Basque expedition (2018)
• Iñurrategi brothers: hearts devoted to the mountains (2020)
• Andres Espinosa: solo and free (2022)
• Edurne Pasaban (2025)
