The collection was written at a historical moment when Irish nationalism was an extraordinarily strong movement, and the collection as a whole grapples with questions relating to the formation of an Irish national identity, both cultural and religious. “The Sisters” is part of Joyce’s canonical short story collection, Dubliners. Joyce died in 1941 in Zurich after falling into a coma after surgery. His most notable work, Ulysses, was published in 1922, and takes as its inspiration Homer’s Odyssey. This was followed by the publication of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916, based on the university manuscript he had abandoned. In 1914, he published Dubliners, his first major work, which tells the stories of middle-class Dublin citizens. While much of Joyce’s work centers on Dublin and Irish politics, he actually didn’t live in Ireland for most of his adult life. After graduating from his university, he met Nora Barnacle, who would become his wife, and the couple moved to continental Europe. He also began writing Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but temporarily abandoned the manuscript after it was rejected. While in college, Joyce wrote essays and literary criticism. Joyce was baptized in the Catholic Church, though his father was critical of the institution and Joyce began to distance himself from the faith at an early age. After graduating from Jesuit high school, Joyce attended University College Dublin, where he studied English, French, and Italian.

From a young age, Joyce excelled in school, and was particularly interested in classical studies.

James Joyce was born into an Irish middle-class family in 1882.

The dubliners book