James Joyce's Zurich

When Joyce decided to leave Ireland in 1904, he and Nora Barnacle intended to move to Zurich. Things didn’t quite work out this way – and yet they would return to the Swiss city on the river Limmat time and again, over the coming years.

This lecture will explore some of the stories related to Joyce’s stays in Zurich. We will examine the traces the city has left in Joyce’s poetry and prose. We will also focus on Joyce’s Zurich afterlife: his grave at Fluntern cemetery, as well as a few highlights from the collection of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation.

Martin Mühlheim is a Swiss philologist and historian, a research assistant at the English Department of the University of Zurich, and the Director of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation.