Dubliners

The Courage to Show the Truth: Joyce's Dubliners as an Authentic Portrait of a Groundbreaking Ireland

James Joyce's first book, Dubliners, was not published until 1914, even though the short stories were written between 1904 and 1907. Joyce had to battle with publishers who objected mainly to the openness with which he approached the subject matter, the language he chose, which innovatively mirrored the speech of ordinary Irish people, and the themes, which were often still taboo or hypocritically concealed at the time. The result was a book in which the author sought to truthfully portray contemporary Ireland, especially Dublin.

In fifteen short stories, he presented the city at the turn of the 20th century in topographical detail and depicted its inhabitants through a whole range of psychologically credible characters and figures in his tales. This book is published in a new translation by Kateřina Hilská.