The innovative writing of James Joyce went on trial, inspired awe and confusion and even put him on the cover of Life magazine. James was the son of John and Mary, born on February 2, 1882 and raised in Dublin. His impoverished father had a drinking problem and his mother Mary was a pianist and devoted Catholic. James was educated by Jesuits at Clongowes in Clone, at Belvedere College in Dublin; he completed his formal education at University College in the same city. As a young boy he wrote poetry and his father printed and distributed some of his childhood poems. In 1900, an essay by James on IbsenÃ?¢??s When We Dead Awaken was published in the Forthnightly Review. Following his graduation, in 1902, he traveled to Paris for a year where he studied medicine, wrote lyric poetry, and taught school. 

James JoyceÃ?¢??s famous books include Dubliners (1914) (a collection of short stories) and three novels: Portrait of the Artist (1914), Ulysses (1922), and FinneganÃ?¢??s Wake (1939). Joyce was particular about his subjects and chose to write only about everyday activities, plucking his characters from his immediate surroundings, and used local towns for the setting in his work. He met Nora Barnacle in 1904 and later used a favorite walk they took in Ringsend (by the mouth of the Liffey) in Ulysses. He briefly roomed in the Martello tower with Oliver St. John Gogarty in 1903, whom youÃ?¢??ll find in the character of Buck Mulligan in Ulysses, cursing atop a tower. Joyce was very experimental with his writing. He was among the first to employ a mimetic style, where he follows the stream of consciousness of his character. This experimentation, along with his choice of subjects, caused a furor. Ulysses, initially deemed pornographic in the British Isles, was banned in America until Random House won a protracted legal battle in 1934. It was not until 1938 that the book would be published in England. 

Joyce lived much of his adult life outside of Ireland. Since he was unable to live in the country with Nora while unmarried, the pair traveled to Zurich, Switzerland, and then to Austria-Hungary in Pola and Trieste. James worked as a teacher, bore a child, and moved briefly to Rome before returning to Trieste. In 1913, Ezra Pound asked to publish one of Joyce�¢??s poems from Chamber Music (1907) in an anthology, which marked the start of a long friendship. During the First World War, the Joyces lived in Zurich. They returned to Trieste 1919 but moved to Paris a year later. It was in Paris that Joyce found a publisher willing to print Ulysses. He spent the remainder of his life writing his final novel, Finnegan�¢??s Wake. It was poorly received after its printing in the spring of 1939, and Joyce passed away from surgery-related complications in 1941.

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Articles About Joyce, James

Finding James Joyce - A visit to James Joyce's Grave	March 8, 2011
If you love the works of James Joyce, then you must go, as odd as it sounds, to Switzerland. Ulysses, the great novel that changed the shape of modern literature forever, was written in part in Zrich. Even more surprisingly, its author is buried in this Swiss city. I set off to find his grave, but at the end of my journey, I found much, much more.
A 'Moral Pub' Crawl Through James Joyce's Dublin	March 8, 2011
The sun casts shadows on the marble bar, its sheen worn dull by 120 years of greasy palms and frothy brew. Denudation through inebriation. A glass tips. Beer collects in pools on the bar - the snotgreen sea. Read that somewhere. Can't think about James Joyce without the old stream o' consciousness.
James Joyce A Portrait of The Artist in Trieste	March 8, 2011
Trieste, Italy, is on the uneasy border where northern Italy flares out to touch Yugoslavia, with Austria hanging just above it like a storm cloud. It was James Joyce's favorite city. I went there in 1983 to see what 500 years of Hapsburg rule (until 1918) on top of Italian rule had produced. Unexpectedly, it proved to be more interesting as Joyce's city.