Joyce, Race and 'Finnegans Wake'

Len Platt charts a fresh approach through one of the great masterpieces of twentieth-century literature. Using original archival research and detailed close readings, he outlines Joyce's literary response to the racial discourse of twentieth-century politics. Platt's account is the first to position Finnegans Wake in precise historical conditions and to explore Joyce's engagement with European fascism. Race, Platt claims, is a central theme for Joyce, both in terms of the colonial and post-colonial conflicts between the Irish and the British, and in terms of its use by the extreme right. It is in this context that Joyce's engagement with race, while certainly a product of colonial relations, also figures as a wider disputation with rationalism, capitalism and modernity.

Review of the hardback:'Platt carves out a fascinating new area of enquiry, and in so doing offers an excitingly fresh 'European reading of the Wake' … Platt's illuminating study is full of fascinating insights regarding the nature of Joyce's engagement with contemporary political matters. … Joyce, Race and Finnegans Wake offers a valuable new reading of a largely uncharted area of Joyce's last work.'

Source: Review of English Studies