Dubliners - James Joyce

Unlike the capital of today, the Dublin Joyce describes is a tired, often seedy world of pubs, rented rooms and boarding houses, exposed in unflinching detail. His stories explore sexual desire and sexual exploitation, domestic violence, corruption and death - the latter most famously in The Dead, which was made into a haunting film starring Anjelica Huston. Yet alongside the social decline and personal failure there is still an abiding affection for the inhabitants of his native city.