An Unexpected Encounter: On the Illustrated ‘Ulysses’
When Spanish painter Eduardo Arroyo set out to illustrate James Joyce’s Ulysses in the late 1980s, he did so with the hope that the final product could commemorate the 50th anniversary of Joyce’s death, in 1991. But resistance from Joyce’s estate prevented the project from ever coming to fruition. Forever after, Arroyo dreamed of one day seeing Joyce’s original text and his own illustrations side by side in a single volume. When, in 2011, Ulysses entered the public domain, that dream became possible.
To commemorate the centennial of James Joyce’s , Other Press will publish Arroyo’s dream—, featuring over, publisher of the Other Press, took on the project just before Arroyo’s death in 2018; although he won’t himself see the edition’s publication on January 25, 2022, Gurewich takes pride in knowing that she helped bring his decade-long dream to life.
