James Joyce

Born into a Catholic family in Dublin in 1882, James Joyce was the eldest of ten children. The family was well-off, but by the time James was ten, his father had been made bankrupt and the family had slid into poverty. The young James was educated by Jesuits, and there was a hope that he might be called to the order, but by age 16, Joyce had rejected Catholicism and embarked on a keen, lifelong interest in literature and the arts. After graduating from University Dublin, Joyce moved to Paris where he developed a taste for alcohol, though he was impelled to return after some months when his mother became terminally ill with cancer. It was on his return to Dublin that he met wtih Nora Barnacle on June 16 1904, a date that would become significant in one of his most famous works, 'Ulysses'. They eloped to the continent, and Joyce returned to Dublin for just a few brief visits in his adult life, though all his writings would be firmly rooted there. Joyce died in Zurich in 1941, having been in poor health, at the age of 58. "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." - James Joyce