Toomevara author invited to Paris to launch latest book and mark James Joyce's birthday

Toomevara writer Brendan Lynch was invited to celebrate James Joyce’s birthday last week with the launch of his Dublin’s Graftonia literary history at 12 rue de l’Odeon, Paris, where Joyce’s Ulysses was first published in 1922.

Jean Helfer, who owns the Moicani Boutique, which has replaced the famous Shakespeare & Company bookshop, said: “It is very appropriate that an Irish author whose new book ends with James Joyce sailing into exile in 1909 should launch his new book here.”

The attendance included fellow-Irish author Isadore Ryan, and Michael Tierney, Deputy Head of Mission at the Irish embassy.

“Irish literature owes a lot to Paris, which welcomed writers over the years from poet Thomas Moore and novelist Hannah Lynch to John Millington Synge, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan and John McGahern,” said Mr Tierney.

The new book was later toasted at the nearby Les Editeurs cafe, a favourite rendezvous for French writers and journalists.