From the Introduction by Declan Kiberd, author of Ulysses and Us: "Francini Bruni, friend to Joyce in Trieste, wrote that 'he only completely admires the unchangeable: the mystery of Christ and the mute drama that surrounds it.' Colum Power, in a study of remarkable patience and rigour, traces Joyce's deep engagement with the more articulate forms which that necessarily mute, often mystical drama has sometimes taken when reduced to the humiliations of language . . . " "I am delighted to learn of this work about Joyce, being one of a relatively small number of Joyce critics who see him as having a very substantial religious sensibility; a topic that I continue to find of great interest and importance." -Weldon Thornton, The Antimodernism of Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man "A very important book. I now understand Joyce better. Critiquing Joyce and Joycean critics is always perilous, affording many opportunities to tumble ignominiously from the tightrope of true balanced perspective. This book crosses that abyss with awe-inspiring aplomb! Leaves one almost breathless, the masterful handling of the material." -Joseph Pearce, The Quest for Shakespeare "A wonderful book, I have read it with great pleasure. The author has surely done his homework. The arguments are compelling and expressed with grace and sty≤ an excellent contribution to Joyce studies." -Mary Lowe-Evans, Catholic Nostalgia in Joyce and Company "A book of enormous significance not only for students of Joyce but for our coming to grips as a nation with Irish Catholicism, but it has enormous potential way beyond the special local Irish interest, considering the widespread influence of Joyce on world literature." -Father Vincent Twomey "A work of impressive quality, not only a matter of knowledge and extensive readings of Joyce's critics. The substance and course of the reflection is really interesting... So many of the observations made are absolutely remarkable." -Father Antoine Levy, O.P. Fr. Colum Power, born in Cork, Ireland, in 1965, is a religious missionary priest. He obtained a Master's degree in Anglo-Irish Studies (1st hons.) at University College Dublin in 1991, a Licentiate in the History of Theology (9) at the San Vicente de Ferrer Faculty of Theology in Valencia, Spain, in 2011, and a doctorate in the History of the Church (9.2) at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome in 2013.

Some of these essays were lectures first delivered in the _Here Comes Everybody_ series to inaugurate the Braegelman Program of Catholic Studies at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN. The authors suggest the depth and breadth of the living Catholic Intellectual Tradition, leading the way in new discussions.

James Joyce and Catholicism is the first historicist study to explore the religious cultural contexts of Joyce's final masterpiece. Drawing on letters, authorial manuscripts and other archival materials, the book works its way through a number of crucial themes; heresy, anticlericalism, Mariology, and others. Along the way, the book considers Joyce's vexed relationship with the Catholic Church he was brought up in, and the unique forms of Catholicism that blossomed in Ireland at the turn of the last century, and during the first years of the Irish Free State.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is semi-autobiographical, following Joyce's fictional alter-ego through his artistic awakening. The young artist Steven Dedelus begins to rebel against the Irish Catholic dogma of his childhood and discover the great philosophers and artists. He follows his artistic calling to the continent.

Dubliners is a collection of picturesque short stories that paint a portrait of life in middle-class Dublin in the early 20th century. Joyce, a Dublin native, was careful to use actual locations and settings in the city, as well as language and slang in use at the time, to make the stories directly relatable to those who lived there. The collection had a rocky publication history, with the stories being initially rejected over eighteen times before being provisionally accepted by a publisher—then later rejected again, multiple times. It took Joyce nine years to finally see his stories in print, but not before seeing a printer burn all but one copy of the proofs. Today Dubliners survives as a rich example of not just literary excellence, but of what everyday life was like for average Dubliners in their day. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

When Kendem, a varsity instructor, returns to his native Lewoh countryside where he spent his childhood, he is seeking relief from the complexity of human civilization after attending the Fulbright Institute in the United States. Instead, he is confronted with two seething issues: how to reveal to his sick and troubled mother the situation in which he finds his elder brother, the successor of Mbe Tanju-Ngong's household, who travelled to the United States many years before and had never returned and the dispute over Fuo Beyano's funeral which is tearing the land apart, whether the deceased village chief, should be given a Christian burial or he should, according to the age-old tradition of Lewoh people, go through a ritual to enable him return and continue ruling his people.