Exiles is a written play by James Joyce that includes three acts; the manuscript was written in 1914, finished in 1915, and published in 1918. Despite the efforts made by Joyce and American poet and critic Ezra Pound, to whom Joyce had shown the manuscript prior to his publication, the play was rejected to be produced; it was however rediscovered in 1970 and made into a London play (directed by Harold Pinter). The plot of the story revolves around a complicated love affair of a man (Robert) that meets a married woman (Bertha) who he used to love, and her husband (Richard) who he used to drink alcohol with. The major point of the play is the sense of doubt about what occurred between Acts Two and Three, the uncertainty about whether the affair between Robert and Bertha has actually happened or not.
James Joyce was born in 1882 in Ireland, and is best known for his poetry, short stories, and novels. Exiles is the only play that he has written, making it unique in its conjugation. It draws a parallel with Joyce's life with his lover Nora Barnacle: the two lived, unmarried, in Trieste, and they considered themselves to be living "in exile" - it is not, however, an autobiographical play.
The writing style and content of Exiles looks back to "The Dead", the final short story in the 1914 short-stories collection Dubliners, and forward to Ulysses, the modernist novel which Joyce began around the time of the composition of Exiles (1914) and published on February 2, 1922 (the day of his 40th birthday).
