Luca Antara

Peter - click here

"Europeans, the Dutch, ‘first discovered’ Australia in 1606. This paper claims there was probably an earlier Portuguese exploration of the Tiwi Islands in northern Australia around 1600. And it puts forward a novel bearing technique for comparing antique maps to corresponding modern publications. The technique is used to demonstrate that a 1602 map, by Emanuel Godinho de Eredia, then a leading cartographer, probably depicts these islands."

The above is part of the abstract for: Peters N. H.., (2002) Eredia Map 1602. Ouro and Luca.Antara Islands: A Case for determining that Ouro and Luca.Antara Islands shown on the Eredia Map are, respectively, Melville and Bathurst Islands of the Tiwi Islands of Australia, Cartography, Vol. 32, No. 2.

Martin Edmond is, like me, a diasporised New Zealander living in Australia (though this year he is back in N.Z., at Auckland University as the writer in residence). He is a writer whose work I like very much, although, because of my 25-year absence from all things literary, I have only discovered it in the past couple of years. He is also my interrogator in our upcoming Q&A to be published soon by the New Zealand electronic poetry centre.

He now has a blog, Luca Antara on which the first post went up a couple of hours ago. Its excellence is a harbinger of things to come. I have just broken a bottle of champagne over it. Bon voyage.