Joyce freedom from copyright

Occupy Ulysses! Author Frank Delaney reads from “Ulysses” in Madison Park to celebrate Joyce’s birthday, “Ulysses” freedom from copyright

This February 2nd, to celebrate the 130th birthday of James Joyce and the 90th anniversary of the publication of Joyce’s mighty novel, Ulysses, author Frank Delaney reads from Ulysses to the public in Madison Square Park, and through video, to the world. The year 2012 has also seen the release of Ulysses into the public domain, an event much anticipated by Joyce scholars and aficionados, long hampered in their efforts by the litigious Joyce estate. Ulysses, even with copyright restrictions, has through the years inspired readings, reenactments, and even twitter events the world over, and Delaney’s reading is surely a harbinger of many inventive interpretations to come.

Delaney rails against interpretations of Ulysses that obfuscate rather than clarify the details, references, meaning, and intent of the book, and instead has shown, in his Re:Joyce podcasts, where every Wednesday he deconstructs the book sentence by sentence in episodes lasting 5-7 minutes, that Ulysses can be absorbed, understood and embraced with no loss of intellectual value. Ulysses, Delaney maintains, is a vastly enjoyable and accessible novel, “a book to get lost in…and discover each day something new.” Launched on Bloomsday 2010, The Re:Joyce podcasts have passed 300,000 downloads as of last week. They have been hailed by listeners as “the people’s Ulysses,” and have been covered by publications such as NPR, The Economist, and many more.

The Re: Joyce project is expected to take approximately 25 years, and Mr. Delaney calculates that to coordinate to that schedule, he will read approximately 37 pages each February 2nd (Joyce’s Birthday), to his Madison Square followers.

Delaney’s latest novel, The Last Storyteller (Random House, February 7th 2012) celebrates the mysteries of the ancient oral tradition as the last itinerant storytellers work their magic in 1950’s Ireland. Best known in this country as New York Times bestselling author of Ireland, Shannon, Tipperary, Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show, and The Matchmaker of Kenmare, Frank Delaney has been a judge of the famed Booker prize and has produced countless shows for the BBC and other UK television and radio shows. He is active on twitter as @FDbytheword.

Please contact Tara Strahl at 607-287-7269 or tara@meierbrand.com with any questions about this event or interview requests for Frank Delaney.
More information: http://www.frankdelaney.com