A Joyful Trajectory

Abstract

This article retraces the enduring history of Bloomsday celebrations in São Paulo, initiated in 1988 by Munira Hamud Mutran and Haroldo de Campos alongside the foundation of the Brazilian Association of Friends of James Joyce—later to become the Brazilian Association of Irish Studies (ABEI)—at the University of São Paulo (USP). These recollections revisit the numerous activities that have shaped this literary, academic, multilingual, polyphonic, and cross-cultural festivity, from its beginning at Finnegans Pub to its development at USP and São Paulo’s house-museums—Casa das Rosas and Casa Guilherme de Almeida. The text pays tribute to the speakers, readers, performers, writers, actors, scholars, musicians, and translators who, over nearly four decades, have shared in this long-lived collective deed of devotion to James Joyce’s work.