An Irishwoman's Diary

It is three hours by train from Trieste to Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana, about the same distance as Galway is from Dublin. For Slovenians, who share a small part of the coastline with Italy, the city has an "up the road" closeness, a proximity both of history and geography.

For James Joyce, the cosmopolitan Adriatic city, part of Slovenia in the Austro-Hungarian empire and annexed by the Italians in the first World War, was a formative influence on the writing of Ulysses and shaped many of his political ideas, particularly on nationalism. The fact that he lived there had a special relevance for the Slovenian writer, Drago Jancar, and inspired his book of short stories, Joyce's Pupil. This was published in English in the US in 2000, in French in 2003 and in The Edinburgh Review last year. It has just been published by Coiscéim in Irish.

The story is based on a real pupil of "Professor Zois", a Slovenian law student from Trieste called Boris Furlan. He went on to become a professor of law in Ljubljana and a member of the anti-fascist resistance, famous in Slovenia for his pro-partisan broadcasts from Radio London and later condemned as a spy. Such are the facts; Jancar's portrays how a man of law, victimised by his knowledge of English and his inability to understand the creative imagination of a writer, becomes embroiled in the chaos, turmoil and whirlwind events of the second World War and the subsequent communist takeover in Slovenia. It is about power and the individual and what Jancar calls descriptive passion and proscriptive censorship - and it speaks volumes about the not so distant history of his country.

In Dublin recently to launch its Irish version, Dálta an tSeoighidh, at the James Joyce Centre, Jancar spoke about his pleasure in seeing the translation of his book from one minority language into another. Some two and a half million people speak Slovene in more than 50 dialects, but since there is no one in the world who speaks both Irish and Slovene, the translation was made into Irish from the English translation. Yet Irish links with Slovenia go back a long time; Irish monks are said to have introduced Latin to the Slavs there in the 8th century. Both countries are small and green, both predominantly Catholic, but despite Austria's dominance for hundreds of years, Slovenes never lost their native language or their sense of national identity.

Today, nearly every Slovenian speaks at least one other language as well.

Jancar, a burly, articulate man in his late 50s, is his country's foremost writer, in the Central European tradition of Kundera, Kafka and Grass, the author of many widely translated novels, plays, short stories and essays. He initially studied law, then became a journalist and editor and for a time in l974 was imprisoned for "enemy propaganda", like the hero of his story.

At the Joyce Centre, he spoke about writing in a "small" language, about how he is constantly asked about the survival of Slovene.

"A person who has truly decided to take the uncertain path of art. . . does not deliberate about large and small languages, they just take hold of a subject, a story or a poem and work with the matter. . .Of course I am pleased to have readers in towns whose names I don't even know and books in languages I don't understand, but that has nothing to do with writing per se, or with the question of how I feel, writing in the language of a small nation," he told the audience.

For Jancar, as for many Slovenian writers of his generation, Joyce has been an enormous influence, additionally interesting because of his connection with Slovenia; there are many Slovenian words in Finnegans Wake.

Last autumn a group of young writers erected a small monument to him at Ljubljana station to commemorate the time he stopped there en route from Vienna to Trieste. "And because he missed the train, he slept the night in the nearby park", says Jancar.

The memorial coincided with the publication of their book called A Night in Ljubljana, in which each gave their own version of what Joyce might have done that night. "He is a huge figure in Slovenia," says Jancar, "as is Brendan Behan and younger Irish authors too."

As a young journalist involved with the student movement in the l970s, Jancar's great desire was to come to Ireland and report on the dramatic events of the time in Belfast, but imprisoned by the authorities for the importation of banned books - one was on the slaughter of Slovenes after the war - it took him 30 years finally to realise his dream. Visiting the Blasket Islands was a particular highlight; but next time he wants to go north.

His visit here is just one of the many cultural events organised by the Slovenian ambassador, Helena Dronovsek Zorko, to celebrate her country's accession to the EU in May and the links between Ireland and Slovenia.

A woman who considers art a more powerful and eloquent diplomatic tool than politics, her cultural programme also includes the visit at the end of this month of the multi-media group NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst), one of the strongest cultural forces in the country.

Other highlights are an exhibition of young Slovenian architects and a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Mladinsko Theatre at the Abbey on May 16th .

A conference, "Art and Politics: The Imagination of Opposition in Europe", will take place courtesy of Slovenia in the Guinness Storehouse on 29th/30th April.

Maybe it was no coincidence that Dronovsek Zorka arrived in Ireland to present her credentials as her country's first ambassador to Ireland on Bloomsday, June 16th, two years ago, eight days before Slovenia celebrated its 11th year of independence. Blame it all on Joyce.