Drawing from Joyce's fiction, essays and letters, Federico Sabatini collects and translates passages that provide a fascinating survey of the writer's thoughts on the art of writing. The first section of the book contains Joyce’s observations about the nature of literature and the actual process of writing - inspiration and imagination, literary techniques, style, language, and the publishing business. The second section deals with his view of the writer as an artist, including sharp and honest self descriptions, and illuminating comments on other great authors (Chekhov, Eliot, Ibsen, Proust, etc.).
In the introduction, Federico Sabatini discusses the role of Joyce in contemporary literature by emphasizing the eternal and universla nature of Joyce's writing, its dazzling linguistic experimentation and piercing insight in the human mind.