ئولیس I want a copy of

One thing I would love to see, is a collection of Ulysses in different languages and different editions. On Groundhog Day 2022 as Joyce turns 140 and people all over the world celebrate the centenary of the publication of Joyce's modernist masterpiece Ulysses, many new books will be published that celebrate his work and one of them is a Kurdish celebration of ئولیس by Nawa Mukerji.

Since 2018 Mukerji has worked to translate ئولیس and I believe his publication will be an impressive five volume edition including one book, Ulysses Annotated and another The Real People of Joyce's Ulysses.

It always amazes me how people have managed to translate Ulysses, considering how difficult Joyce's modernist novel is to fully understand.

Joyce even boasted that it would take the professors centuries to understand everything that he had written. A full century later and we will have five new Joycean books in Kurdish that have been painstakingly translated by Nawa Mukerji but are we any closer to fully understanding James Joyce and Ulysses?

Over the last 100 days, I have celebrated the last 100 years by looking at Ulysses, listening to Ulysses, reading Ulysses and commentary about the book while also attending Joycean events and posting daily updates about the centenary event on Groundhog Day.

I have spent time working and living in Dublin, I am from Ireland, and spent a stint as a delivery driver in Dublin 7 and should have no difficulties stepping into Joyce's world, certainly not compared to someone from another country who speaks another language.

I am so tempted to buy Nawa Mukerji's books because I am so impressed with the idea of a Kurdish translation of a book that I find difficult to read and understand in English.

Seriously, wouldn't it be great to have different versions of Ulysses in different languages?

What I love most about Mukerji's books is the picture of him translating it that I saw on an Instagram account Ulysses.krd and I really wish there were more pictures of the people who made Ulysses the international success that it has been, and the people like Nawa Mukerji who will continue to create content over the next century.

Sylvia Beach & James Joyce

GOOD COMPANY

This Groundhog Day, let's celebrate the translators who made Joyce universally available to people around the world, and people like Sylvia Beach who started it all when she published Ulysses in its entirety 100 years ago, when no one else would.

I really wish I was able to make it to Paris, and Shakespeare and Company for all the Joycean celebrations. I am sure I would be in very good company.

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UNESCO City of Literature