I N T R O D U C I N G J A M E S J O Y C E ’ S
GIACOMO JOYCE
“She answers my sudden greeting by turning and averting her black basilisk eyes. Ecol suo vedere attosca l’uomo quando lo vede. I thank you for the word, messer Brunetto.”
James Joyce, Giacomo Joyce
“Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes glinting stern under wrinkled brows. A basilisk. E quando vede l’uomo l’attosca. Messer Brunetto, I thank thee for the word.”
James Joyce, Ulysses
“I hold this book to be the most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape.”
T.S. Eliot on James Joyce’s Ulysses
Fiona Kidman, Winter, my love
A great citrus coloured ball of a sun, that is how Nora will remember it, the day the young man first came to the door. She is kneeling, ungainly among the ripening tomatoes, picking fallen fruit from the ground, the soil’s crust crumbling beneath her hands. It was her husband who told her that tomatoes were fruit not vegetables, in the same way that figs are flowers not fruit.
Discussion
Erin Dailey interviews our contributors on their process, practice and response to Giacomo Joyce.
Witi Ihimaera, MOKOMOKAI
I slam the door shut, slamslamslamslam slam. And then I stare at him, kanohi ki te kanohi, so that he can see the whites of my eyes: I lifted up a rock, Ffolkes, and you were under it.
It’s too late to go back, I tell him. I would only be implicating myself in the trade of a preserved head.
Contributors for ETNZ’s Giacomo Joyce
Julian Peters
Julian Peters is an illustrator and comic book artist living in Montreal, Canada, who focuses on adapting classical poems into graphic art. His work has been exhibited internationally and published in several poetry and graphic art collections. Peters holds a master’s degree in Art History, and in 2015, served as “Cartoonist in Residence” at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Sarah Laing
Sarah Laing is a fiction writer and graphic artist. She comes at books from all angles, writing as well as designing and illustrating them. The author of a graphic memoir, two novels, and a collection of short stories, she has also illustrated children’s books and designed and co-edited an anthology of Aotearoa/NZ women’s comics.
Tyler Shane Tesolin
Tyler Shane Tesolin was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He completed both his Undergraduate degree and Master's degree in Cinema and Media Studies at York University in Toronto. Tesolin has been making movies his entire life, focusing primarily on the intersection between film poetry and documentary. His first feature film, Planet Sarajevo, was screened in the BH program of the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2020. Tesolin currently resides in Wellington, New Zealand with his wife, where he is completing a research creation PhD in Film at Victoria University in Wellington.
Dame Fiona Kidman
Dame Fiona Kidman is a New Zealand novelist, poet, scriptwriter and short story writer. She grew up in Northland, and began writing novels in the late 1970s, with her works often inspired by her involvement in the women's liberation movement. Over the course of her career, Kidman has written eleven novels, seven short-story collections, two volumes of her memoirs and six collections of poetry. Her works explore women's lives and issues of social justice, and often feature historical settings.
Witi Ihimaera
Witi Ihimaera is an international indigenous novelist of Māori descent (Te Whānau a Kai and Ngāti Porou). A hardworking and versatile writer, four of his books have been made into the films The Whale Rider, White Lies, Mahana and Kawa (Nights in the Gardens of Spain). He lives in Auckland.