James Joyce

James Joyce (1882–1941) was an Irish writer and a central figure of literary modernism. He studied modern languages at University College Dublin and turned to writing early in his career. His major works include the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), the autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). In Ulysses, he commemorated 16 June 1904—the day he first went out with Nora Barnacle—as “Bloomsday.” Joyce died in Zurich in 1941.