James Joyce

Joyce's first major work, written when he was only twenty-five, brought his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire and exploitation, corruption and personal failure, yet creates a brilliantly compelling, unique vision of the world and of human experience.

Who is Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker? And what did he get up to in Phoenix Park? And what did Anna Livia Plurabelle have to say about it? In the rich night time and the language of dreams, here are history, anecdote, myth, folk tale and, above all, a wondrous sense of humour, coloured by a clear sense of humanity.

The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce and a universal testament to the artist's 'eternal imagination'.

A day in the life of the author's city, Dublin, becomes a wild and joyous celebration of the love of a man for his home town. Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, come together in a hilarious scene in a brothel. It is as if Stephen takes the place of the son who died when Bloom was a young man and the story becomes a celebration of life itself.