Exiles

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‘The undertow of unspoken feeling is tumultuous, and although hardly anything happens the action amounts to a fearful adventure’ New York Times

James Joyce’s play Exiles follows the story of writer Richard Rowan, who, along with his 'common-law wife’ Bertha and their son Archie, has come home to Dublin after ten years away. The couple’s return triggers an existential questioning, an anxiousness which is exacerbated by meetings with old friends and lovers. All this is set against the background of the summer of 1912, when Ireland and even England were threatening to tear themselves apart over Ulster. Exiles is a profound exploration of jealousy, doubt and the complexity of human desire; it is also about the torments of disunion in both the public and private realm.

With a new introduction and notes by Andrew Gibson.

A neglected landmark of modern theatre that explores the byzantine complexities of marriage with the honesty of genius
Guardian

About James Joyce

James Joyce was born in Dublin on 2 February 1882, the eldest of ten children in a family which, after brief prosperity, collapsed into poverty. He was nonetheless educated at the best Jesuit schools and then at University College, Dublin, and displayed considerable academic and literary ability. Although he spent most of his adult life outside Ireland, Joyce's psychological and fictional universe is firmly rooted in his native Dublin, the city which provides the settings and much of the subject matter for all of his fiction. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). James Joyce died in Zürich, on 13 January 1941.

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