Exiles: A Play in Three Acts was first published in 1918. It takes place in the summer of 1912 in Merrion and Ranelagh, both suburbs of Dublin, to which a famous writer returns after nine years of exile. Joyce described the structure of the play as "three cat and mouse acts." The inspiration for the play drew from his own feelings of exile when he and and his lover, Nora Barnacle lived, unmarried, in Trieste, Italy for almost a decade, a city described as Italy's "most beautifully haunting city.'