For the writer perhaps most readily identifiable with Irish literature, it's a bit of a surprise that James Joyce is buried in Zurich. In 1941 the self-exiled Joyce, who had left Ireland in 1902 because of political turmoil, died after undergoing ulcer surgery in Switzerland and was quickly buried in the Fluntern Cemetery. Though Joyce's wife Nora tried to move her husband's body to Ireland after the burial, the Irish government denied the request. Joyce's body resides in a grave alongside his wife and son, watched over by a small statue of the poet.