James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in Dublin, Ireland. His parents were John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane “May” Joyce (née Murray), and he was the oldest of 10 surviving children. He was born into a Catholic family and attended a Jesuit school but was critical of the Catholic church from an early age, seeming to grapple with complex feelings on religion throughout his entire life. “The Sisters” includes reflections on the psychological effects of religious ritual that are characteristic of Joyce’s complex views on Catholicism. James met his future wife, Nora Barnacle, in 1904, and they moved to Europe soon after. They had two children, Giorgio (born in 1905) and Lucia (born in 1907), and were married in 1930.

Joyce’s most significant major works are the short story collection, Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). He also wrote several collections of poetry and one play, Exiles (1918). Joyce’s writings have been the subject of extensive literary criticism, and he is considered one of the most important figures in literary Modernism, particularly in the development of the stream of consciousness

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