James Joyce&nbsp;was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He contributed to the&nbsp;modernist&nbsp;avant-garde&nbsp;and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century. Joyce is best known for&nbsp;Ulysses&nbsp;(1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of&nbsp;Homer&#39;s&nbsp;Odyssey&nbsp;are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, most famously&nbsp;stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection&nbsp;Dubliners&nbsp;(1914), and the novels&nbsp;A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man&nbsp;(1916) and&nbsp;Finnegans Wake&nbsp;(1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, his published letters and occasional journalism.<br /><br />Joyce was born in&nbsp;Dublin&nbsp;into a middle-class family. A brilliant student, he briefly attended the Christian Brothers-run&nbsp;O&#39;Connell School&nbsp;before excelling at the Jesuit schools&nbsp;Clongowes&nbsp;and&nbsp;Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father&#39;s alcoholism and unpredictable finances. He went on to attend&nbsp;University College Dublin.<br /><br />In 1904, in his early twenties, Joyce emigrated to continental Europe with his partner (and later wife)&nbsp;Nora Barnacle. They lived in&nbsp;Trieste,&nbsp;Paris, and&nbsp;Zurich. Although most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce&#39;s fictional universe centres on Dublin and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there.&nbsp;Ulysses&nbsp;in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of&nbsp;Ulysses, he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, &quot;For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.&quot;