Dubliners. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce is a classic of Anglo-Irish literature, who had a colossal influence on the prose of the 20th century. He entered the history of world literature as the author of the novel "Ulysses," recognized as the pinnacle of modernism and the beginning of the literature of "stream of consciousness." The collection "Dubliners" began as a series of stories for the magazine "Irish Homestead," and the first of them were published under the pseudonym Stephen Dedalus. This name will later be borne by the protagonist of the novels "Ulysses" and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," the writer's alter ego in the space of his works. "Dubliners" is Joyce's first mature work, reflecting his impressionistic style of writing, and the first realistic work of Irish literature of the 20th century, marking a new stage in the development of English-language short fiction, comparable to the significance of Chekhov's prose for Russian literature. The novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is largely autobiographical, and with extraordinary, at times painful sharpness and brightness, depicts the inner world of a young man, a lonely poet and philosopher. Joyce did not complete the novel "Stephen Hero," transferring some parts to "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," and destroying others. The novella was published posthumously in 1944, and despite its incompleteness, it is an independent milestone in the writer's work, important for understanding his creative search. Of great interest to the writer's admirers who wish to touch upon the roots of his creativity is the collection "Epiphanies" — sketches and outlines that were later developed in Joyce's later prose. The texts are published in a translation by Sergey Khoruzhiy with detailed commentary.