After ten long years spent away from Dublin, Richard, Bertha and their young illegitimate son Archie are back home. Despite expectations of comfort and domesticity, the couple's return to the place where they first met triggers an existential questioning, an anxiousness which is exacerbated by meetings with old friends and lovers.

James Joyce's only surviving play, Exiles builds upon one of his most famous short stories, 'The Dead', to provide a profound exploration of jealousy, doubt and the complexity of human desire.

'The undertow of unspoken feeling is tumultuous, and although hardly anything happens the action amounts to a fearful adventure' New York Times

James Joyce's play Exiles follows the story of writer Richard Rowan, who, along with his 'common-law wife' Bertha and their son Archie, has come home to Dublin after ten years away. The couple's return triggers an existential questioning, an anxiousness which is exacerbated by meetings with old friends and lovers. All this is set against the background of the summer of 1912, when Ireland and even England were threatening to tear themselves apart over Ulster. Exiles is a profound exploration of jealousy, doubt and the complexity of human desire; it is also about the torments of disunion in both the public and private realm.

With a new introduction and notes by Andrew Gibson.