Conversations with Antigone Kefala: 'to make something that will outlast us, be eternal, live in time, extend us'

Although Antigone Kefala first came as a refugee to New Zealand in the early 1950s, and then migrated to Australia during the mass-migratory wave of the 1960s, she was one of the few women to have her mother with her both in New Zealand and later in Australia. Kefala’s very close relationship with her mother weaves its way through all her works, her passing creating an absence that is difficult for her daughter to come to terms with. In Summer Visit, the close bond between mother and daughter is a pervasive thematic preoccupation. My cognisance of it was rendered more overt upon revisiting Kefala’s writings subsequent to the passing of my own beloved mother. This shared experience deepened my relationship with her words, transposing the critical process from that of engagement to that of active interlocution.