Joycean Legacies

The primary focus of the twelve essays in this collection is on the craft of James Joyce and the profound challenge it has posed for subsequent writers from the 1940s to the present day. First, each writer's positioning of him or herself in relation to the professed Joycean legacy is discussed, often with reference to archival material, then explication of the creative work illuminates those moments where mere mimicry, parody, or allusion becomes conjoined with original expression to create a new form. Writers as diverse as Kate O'Brien, Brendan Behan, and Frank McCourt pay direct tribute to Joyce's inspiration, while others such as J.G. Farrell, George Orwell, and Patrick McCabe engage with the Joycean critique of history; postmodernists such as Anthony Burgess, Raymond Carver, and Iain Sinclair revisit Joycean linguistic and generic innovation in unexpected ways, while Derek Walcott and Persian modernist Sedaq Hedayat represent two views of Joyce's enduring global legacy. Featuring a Preface by Derek Attridge, the volume will fill a real gap in scholarship on Joyce's complex influence on contemporary literature biographically, textually, stylistically and generically.