Seraph Press
  • Home
  • Publications
  • About
  • Contact
  • Orders
  • Media
  • Translation Series

Ithaca Island Bay Leaves: A Mythistorima
by Vana Manasiadis

Picture
Part family exploration, part personal narrative, this haunting and delicate debut collection weaves the mythic into the everyday.

Drawing on her Greek heritage, Vana Manasiadis has Icarus crashing in Wellington storm, Theseus as a DOC ranger, and her grandfather, grandmother and mother threading their way through times, places and incarnations.

Exploring the ex patria feeling of ‘being here and being there,’ she sews together Greece and New Zealand to create a playful and deeply moving journey.

Praise for Ithaca Island Bay Leaves

I lingered on each page to absorb the deliciously fresh lines and the nimble sound effects, then I gravitated to the chorus of voices.  The poems build a maternal line from daughter through mother to grandmother in a tone of utter tenderness.
Paula Green, New Zealand Herald

Spanning waters, generations, and genres, Manasiadis does more than merely mix the mythological with the ordinary .... a cross-cultural poetic voice emerges confidently and provocatively inaugurating a text very much aware of its humour and the boldness of its manipulations .... This collection is a masterful debut, speaking with grace and candour to ancestry, migration, community, and love.
Julia Cooper, The Lumiere Reader
 
[Ithaca Island Bay Leaves] feels both sure and tentative in the way of all exploration, and both visionary and intimate in the way of all good stories.
Mary McCullum, O Audacious Book

The book hits notes of human resistance and resourcefulness again and again. But it has not a touch of piety in it, has in fact a really pungent wit and a sharp tongue .... Manasiadis dismisses no one and everyone has the best lines.
Damien Wilkins

Ithaca Island Bay Leaves is alive with the re-telling of legends that shape and sustain cultural relocation; with acute observation and insight, and the warmth of Vana Manasiadis's alluring, original poetic voice.
Stephanie de Montalk

About the author

Picture
Vana Manasiadis was born in Wellington in 1973 and completed a Master of Arts in creative writing at Victoria University in 2005. In-between times she has taught classics, drama and English, and lived in Athens, Paris and Bologna. She currently resides in Crete.


Buy Ithaca Island Bay Leaves: A Mythistorima

​Pay by credit card or PayPal. Postage free within New Zealand. If you want to pay by direct credit, email contact@seraphpress.co.nz and we'll sort you out.
$25 – including postage within NZ
$30 – including international postage
Title: Ithaca Island Bay Leaves: a mythistorima
Author: Vana Manasiadis
Category: Poetry
ISBN: 978-0-473-15235-2
Format: Paperback, 150 mm (wide) x 200 mm (tall), 80 pages
RRP:  $25
Publication date:  December 2009

Trade price $13.04
Orders are ordinarily firm sale, but sale or return terms are negotiable
Postage: up to $4.00 per order within New Zealand
Contact Helen Rickerby, managing editor, Seraph Press, PO Box 25239, Panama Street, Wellington 6146, New Zealand
email: seraphpress@paradise.net.nz
phone: (04) 385 7119
Picture

Picture
Seraph Press on Facebook

Picture


Links

Vana Manasiadis's website

Radio interview with Vana Manasiadis about Ithaca Island Bay Leaves, Jan 2010

Radio interview with Vana Manasiadis about political situation in Greece, July 2011
Proudly powered by Weebly