New 6x9 inch paperback edition. An early example of Joyce's modernist, free indirect speech style of writing, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is a semi-autobiographical novel that traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions with which he has been raised. He finally leaves for abroad to pursue his ambitions as an artist. James Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist and poet considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century, and is well known for writing in the stream of consciousness technique he perfected.