The life-sized statue of James Joyce on North Earl Street in Dublin has a Croatian counterpart after a bronze statue of the writer was unveiled in a small coastal town on Saturday.
The unveiling ceremony of the 1.9-metre-tall statue, which shows the writer sitting at a coffee table, was attended by the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil, Dr Rory O' Hanlon, who described the tribute to Joyce as a "cultural bridge between our two countries".
Mr Branislav Bimbasic, owner of the Ulysses café in the port of Pula, who rallied locals and raised money to have the statue of "the most famous Dubliner of all time" built, said: "He was our most famous visitor and we wanted something to remember him by.
"The statue is bigger than the one in Dublin. We've measured it and we know it's bigger."
The statue, sculptured by Croatian artist Mate Cvrljak, is 10 centimetres taller than Marjorie Fitzgibbon's and has been placed in the centre of Pula in front of a house where Joyce stayed with his wife Nora between November 1904 and April 1905. During that time the writer taught English at a local school.
His relationship with the town was a rocky one and he wrote letters to friends and family describing the place as "miserable" and "boring".
"It's a seaside Siberia," he told his brother in 1905.
But Mr Bimbasic said Joyce had been "forgiven" for his poor opinion of the place and blamed the writer's often troubled relationship with his wife for his dislike of Pula.
He said: "For such a great writer, anything can be forgiven and forgotten. The people of Pula hold nothing against him. Really, we love him. He was the most fantastic writer and it doesn't matter what he said back then. I think he had some problems with his wife which would have put him in a bad mood. He is the father of the modern novel and he came here, and we want to remember him. In honour of Joyce and his most famous book, Ulysses, we'll have the statue out on the café terrace for everyone to see."
A picture of the Dublin statue hangs on the wall of his café.