Baby Zero, is a child of our times: Caught between the fundamentalism of the East and the commercialism of the West. In a far-off land, everytime the regime changes they turn the year back to zero, as if to begin history again. Each girl in this family is born in the year zero, a time of turmoil. They are scattered across the globe, refugees in Ireland and the U.S. - but when one returns home she finds herself imprisioned.
FOR ALL UPCOMING EVENTS SEE SIDEBAR UNDER PAGES ON THIS SITE
New review of Baby Zero and interview with author on laurahird.com
Reading of Baby Zero by Emer Martin
Reviews of Baby Zero
What a incendiary, thought-provoking novel this is. It examines how women and children are crushed between the twin oppressions of eastern fundamentalism and western consumerism. And it also, like a bleak but
spiritual and haunting ballad, moves us and makes us care. - Irvine Welsh
“In a world awash with the sort of low-grade, formulaic fiction that publishers think women want, Emer Martin is a beacon of hope…. If there is any justice in the world her latest novel, Baby Zero, will see her break through to the major league of literary writers and cement her reputation as one of the most exciting voices to emerge from this country in the last decade…. A prophetic and deeply moving work.”Books Ireland, Feb 2007
“A masterpiece” - Kevin Williamson.
“Raven-haired writer Emer Martin is giving a lunchtime reading from her fabulous new novel, Baby Zero. Emer Martin is a brilliant writer, very much the real deal. She tells me that every single Irish review of her new book has made passing reference to Cecelia Ahern. Weird, given that Emer is to chick-lit what Shane MacGowan is to sobriety.” - Olaf Tyaransen, Evening Herald. Read the rest of this entry »
In August ‘07 Social and Personal magazine listed Emer as one of the top five hottest artists to invest in on the current Irish art scene.
FUSION
A new exhibition with work edited by the brilliant and amazing painter ROBERT BALLAGH
Robert Ballagh will be opening this exhibition on May 15th at 7pm
Robert has helped the group with their paintings and chosen the pieces to be shown
This was funded by Meath County Council for the Bealtaine Festival
Toradh Gallery, Ashbourne Civic Offices, Killegland Street, Ashbourne, Co. Meath
Emer’s painting to be shown and for sale is below
The show will run till June 8th 2008
The war child dreaming
Emer will be displaying her paintings with
The Old Schoolhouse Art Group
At Trim Library
May 8th, 2008
Opening at 8pm
Exhibition runs till May 22nd
Members of the art group: Una Ryan, Mette Roche, Emer Martin, Noeleen Slevin
Annabel Potterton, Vincent O’Neill, Marysia Harasimowicz
Previous Exhibitions:
The Old Schoolhouse, Dunboyne, Co Meath,
Dec 15th-16th, 2007 You can view the oil painting below
Dream of the Iraqi Child
Emer will be displaying a series of three paintings for sale at
The Old Schoolhouse Art Group
Summer Exhibition
Friday 22nd June until Tuesday 3rd July
At Leixlip Library, Captain’s Hill, Leixlip
Private View with wine Thursday 21st June 7.30-9.30pm
Opening hours Mon-Sat 9-5pm
(Tuesdays and Thursdays 8pm closing)
Una Ryan, Mette Roche, Emer Martin, Noeleen Slevin
Annabel Potterton, Vincent O’Neill, Marysia Harasimowicz
The Old Schoolhouse Art Group
Summer Exhibition
Friday 22nd June until Tuesday 3rd July
At Leixlip Library, Captain’s Hill, Leixlip
Private View with wine Thursday 21st June 7.30-9.30pm
Opening hours Mon-Sat 9-5pm
(Tuesdays and Thursdays 8pm closing)
Butter Boots and Paper Stockings Exhibition opened on Wed the 18th Origin Gallery, 83 Harcourt St. @ 18:30
The traditional singer Caitriona O’Leary performed. Guest Speaker was Professor Seamas O Cathain from U.C.D Folklore Department
The show will run from 18th October to the 15th November
A tribute to Sean O’Conaill, the Kerry Storyteller
Review of painting show, Sunday Business Post 26/10/06
Martin’s latest breathes new life into old stories
Sunday, October 29, 2006 - By Ros Drinkwater
Continuity is alive and thriving at Dublin’s Origin Gallery.
The inspiration for Butter Boots And Paper Stockings, Emer Martin’s current exhibition, is a story-teller, or seanchai, as he would have described himself.
Sean O Conaill was a farmer and fisherman who lived in the Kerry village of Cill Rialaig, now internationally known as an artists’ retreat. O’Conaill could neither read nor write, but he had 9,000 stories on the tip of his tongue ready for telling.
He died in 1931, and his tales would have been lost but for Seamus O Duilearga, a UCD Professor of Folklore who took them all down between 1923 and 1931. They were subsequently translated into English by Maire MacNeill - daughter of John MacNeill, of 1916 fame - and published in a book.
There are now plans for a reprint illustrated by paintings by Martin and Trevor Stubley, an English artist similarly inspired.
It was when prize-winning artist and novelist Martin took up an artist’s residency at Cill Rialaig, last February, that she first heard of O Conaill and his stories.
She sees these as ‘‘our last link to the first of our people’’.
She stayed in a cottage next to his home, perched high on a cliff overlooking a landscape she has described as a ‘‘theatre of an immense, ever-shifting sea and sky and a vivid multicoloured tapestry of land’’.
That said, she brings to that landscape a palette that betrays a Middle Eastern influence, with the hot pinks and vibrant aquamarines of ancient Persian ceramics.
Not surprisingly, Martin has travelled extensively in the Middle East. She is married to an Iranian scientist whom she met in New York. The paintings are a joyful celebration of legend at its most fantastical with O Conaill’s own titles - There Was a Dragon That Came From The Sea, What Cures Whooping Cough? and The Fairy Cows Return To The Sea.
The most powerful depict the tale of a girl and the Bull Bhalbhae. In O Conaill’s words: ‘‘He asked her whether she would prefer him to be a bull by night and a man by day, or a bull by day and a man by night. He said she must choose one or the other. She said she would prefer him to be a bull by day and a man by night . . .”
The exhibition’s intriguing title is from a direct quote from O Conaill: ‘‘This is my story. If there is a lie in it, let it be so. It was not I who composed it. I got no reward but butter boots and paper stockings. The white-legged hound came, and ate the boots from my feet and tore the paper stockings.”
Butter Boots and Paper Stockings, paintings by Emer Martin, Origin Gallery, 83 Harcourt Street, Dublin 2, 01–4785159.
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A new short fiction film shot by novelist and filmmaker Emer Martin (Breakfast in Babylon) and staring Maria Hayden (Bloom 2003) (The Dead 1987).
The movie features Irvine Welsh as a social worker who finds a traumatized unaccompanied minor from Africa on the streets of Dublin. Produced by Niall McKay.
A young African boy who does not speak is found on the streets of Dublin. The authorities name him Danny and he comes under the care of Sarah, an over-worked social worker and single mother of two. Sarah and Danny form an ineffable bond, and she decides to foster him, but is shattered by his sudden disappearance.
For more info go to http://www.mediafactory.tv/
NUTS
a new short film written and directed by Irvine Welsh. This film is in post production with Media Factory in Berkeley California 2006. Producer Emer Martin.
Irvine Welsh’s debut as a director is Nuts - a dark comedy. Underneath the obvious comic elements there are bigger issues at play here. Notably, the much overlooked men’s health issue of testicular cancer, and the closet racism among the professional Irish middle-class. Ireland is a country that has just undergone dramatic changes, and the comfortable materialistic world that Dominic has built around himself is about to fall apart.
For more info go to http://www.mediafactory.tv/
http://emermartin.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/olgaleer.jpg FILMOGRAPHY
Baby Zero, An adaptation of Emer’s book Baby Zero has been optioned by Zanzibar productions and just received developmental funding from the Irish Film Board www.zanzibarfilms.net
Valley Of Ghosts , 16mm Color, 16 mins, 2003
Valley of Ghosts is a film about Silicon Valley - the new Wild West. Mary, a laid off high tech worker makes a film for her unborn child whom she is forced to sell to Michael and Sangita, dot com. Millionaires.
The Motel At The Mouth Of The Tunnel, 16mm B&W, 9 mins, 2000
Rosemary’s Baby in eight and a half minutes, this narrative film is about a young Irish woman who is tricked by her bulimic demon roommate into having a child.
Programmer For Filum 04, San Francisco International Irish Film Festival.
March 10/11 2004, Delancey Screening Room.
UPCOMMING EVENTS
NUTS will be featured at the prestigious Cork Film Festival 2007
MARDI GRAS
Spirit Nightclub
Sunday, 8 July 2007
Frank Ilfman AKA DJ Carnival-Pod / DJ Saskia /
DJ Tony Walsh/ Irish short films / Diva Manilla
Venue: Spirit Nightclub, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1
Date: Sunday, 8 July, 2007
Time: Short films start screening at 10.30pm on the main floor; DJ competition begins at the same time in the basement; Tocadisco music video premier at 12.00am followed by DJ Carnival-Pod.
Price: Tickets 10 (with passes)
Free before 11.00pm
Irvine Welsh’s film Nuts is a dark comedy. Underneath the obvious comic elements there are bigger issues at play. Notably, the much overlooked men’s health issue of testicular cancer, and the closet racism among the professional Irish middle-class. Ireland is a country that has just undergone dramatic changes, and the comfortable materialistic world that Dominic has built around himself is about to fall apart. This short film is novelist and screenwriter (Trainspotting) Irvine Welsh’s directorial debut. The film was produced by Emer Martin and Niall McKay.
Posted by emer | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Buy Book
Author
Emer Martin is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East, and various places in the U.S. Her first novel Breakfast in Babylon won Book of the Year 1996 in her native Ireland at the prestigious Listowel Writers' Week. Houghton Mifflin released Breakfast in Babylon in the U.S. in 1997. More Bread Or I'll Appear, her second novel was published internationally in 1999.
Emer studied painting in New York and has had a sell-out solo show of her paintings at the
Origin Gallery in Harcourt St, Dublin. Her new book is Baby Zero,
published March 07. She has just completed her third short film Unaccompanied. She produced Irvine Welsh's directorial debut NUTS in 2007. Emer was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000.
She now lives in the jungles of Co. Meath, Ireland.
March 2007 Brandon Publishing
