Christos Tsiolkas

ince his "wog boy as nightmare" novel Loaded first raised eyebrows in 1995, Christos Tsiolkas, 32, hasn't quieted down. He has explored what it means to be Australian in the book Jump Cuts (1996), and unemployment in a recent theater collaboration, Who's Afraid of the Working Class? His second novel, The Jesus Man, is due out next year.

Q: How much of you was in the original character of Ari?

A: Obviously there are aspects of me in Ari, but I think there are also aspects of me in Johnny/Toula. The most autobiographical part of that novel is the landscape Ari moves in--that was definitely the world I moved in: the gay world, the Greek world, the suburbs of Melbourne. Q: What's it like to see Ari up on screen?

A: The first ten minutes I was really uncomfortable and thought, I don't want to be here. But after that I just forgot I'd written the book and watched it as a film, and I got really excited.

Q: What was the response to Loaded in the Greek community?

A: It's very hard to speak of a homogeneous Greek community any more than it's possible to speak of a homogeneous Australian community. One clear divide is the generational one between [second generation Australian kids and] Greeks of my parents' generation who don't read English, so they don't come into contact with the novel. I think the film will be a very different matter.

Q: What motivates you as a writer?

A: I consider myself someone who is quite angry about the economic and cultural contradictions of Australia in 1998. It's not a time for writers and artists to settle for easy answers. I think we need to push boundaries, we need to confront ourselves.