The birthday of the famous Irish writer James Joyce, born on February 2, 1882, and the birthday of his most famous work "Ulysses", which earned him the status of one of the most important and influential writers of the 20th century, published on February 2, 1922, were celebrated with an event organized by Marija Girevska on February 2, 2023 at the cafe-bookstore "Bukva".

At the event, the new book "Giacomo Joyce", a bilingual edition (in English and Macedonian), translated by Maria Girevska and with notes by Fritz Senn and Richard Elman, was promoted.

- The manuscript of "Giacomo Joyce", handwritten by James Joyce on 8 drawing sheets and left between the covers of a blue school notebook, was found in Trieste. His brother Stanislav preserved them, and they were published posthumously only in 1968. These notes were probably written in the summer of 1914, and some of them would serve as rehearsals for what Joyce would later write in Ulysses. Why did Joyce leave these papers in Trieste when he left for Paris in June 1920? These fragments of a revived memory of an unfulfilled longing for a black-eyed girl, as his biographer Richard Ellman says, represent "a small, fragile, permanent perfection" – explains Girevska.

"As in all the other works written by Joyce, in 'Giacomo Joyce' love is ironically empowered, even as it bears witness to the melancholy of man's attempt to enjoy it... Fragile is the young dark-eyed woman and fragile are these notes about a momentary love", Girevska wrote in the introduction to the Macedonian translation of the work.

Exactly one decade ago, Maria Girevska translated the most important work of James Joyce - "Ulysses", and every year on June 16 she organizes the event "Bloomsday".

(The text was published in "Cultural Press" number 165, in the print edition of the newspaper "Free Press" on February 4-5, 2023)