THE DEAD

Dublin, 6 January: the Feast of the Epiphany, also known in Ireland as Women’s Christmas or Nollaig na mBan. Gretta and Gabriel Conroy attend the annual dinner party hosted by his aunts, the Morkan Sisters. As the house on Usher’s Island fills with laughter, music and dancing, the worries and secrets of the guests interweave and overlap. The festive evening culminates in a shocking confession by Gretta and a life-changing epiphany for Gabriel.

The closing story of James Joyce’s Dubliners is widely considered the greatest short story ever written in the English language. His tender portrait of the Dublin of his youth has captivated readers for over a century.

With a new introduction by the award-winning and bestselling Irish author Nuala O’Connor, this special edition of The Dead is a gift for the ages.

Author Biography

NUALA O’CONNOR is a novelist, short story writer and poet, and lives in County Galway with her family. She is the

author of six previous novels, including the bestselling Nora (2021), about James Joyce’s wife, Nora Barnacle, and six short-story collections. She has won many prizes for her short fiction, including the Francis MacManus Award and the James Joyce Quarterly Fiction Contest. Her story ‘This Giddy Life’ was awarded writing.ie Short Story of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards. Her work has also been nominated for numerous prizes including the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the International Dublin Literary Award. nualaoconnor.com