Idoia — Durante

Idoia Durante: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Cultural Identity, Narrative Strategies, and Digital Mediation in Contemporary Basque Literature Abstract This paper investigates the works and cultural impact of Idoia Durante, a prolific Basque author, playwright, and digital storyteller whose oeuvre (2008‑2024) exemplifies the negotiation of regional identity within the globalized media landscape. By integrating literary analysis, cultural‑anthropological fieldwork, and digital‑media methodology, we examine three core dimensions of Durante’s practice: (1) the articulation of Basque linguistic and mythic heritage; (2) narrative strategies that fuse oral tradition with post‑modern metafiction; and (3) the deployment of digital platforms (social media, interactive hypertexts, and immersive installations) as mediators of collective memory. Findings reveal that Durante’s hybridized forms function as “cultural amplifiers,” simultaneously preserving endangered linguistic repertoires and re‑configuring them for transnational audiences. The study contributes to scholarship on minority literatures, digital humanities, and identity politics, proposing a theoretical model— the Mediated Cultural Continuum —that can be applied to other peripheral language contexts. Keywords Idoia Durante; Basque literature; cultural identity; digital storytelling; hybrid narrative; minority language revitalization; mediated cultural continuity. 1. Introduction The Basque Country has long been a crucible for linguistic resilience and cultural innovation. In the early twenty‑first century, a new generation of writers has begun to harness digital media to renegotiate the boundaries between tradition and modernity. Among them, Idoia Durante stands out for her prolific output across multiple media—novels, stage plays, web‑based hypertexts, and immersive installations—each explicitly foregrounding the Basque language (Euskara) and its mythopoetic corpus.