“I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.”

Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic

James Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He helped shape modernism and is widely regarded as a major writer of the 20th century. He is best known for Ulysses, a novel that reworks episodes from Homer’s Odyssey through a range of literary styles, especially stream of consciousness. Other well-known works include Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Finnegans Wake. He also wrote two books of poetry, a play, letters, and occasional journalism.